LIBRARY 

U*iv«n!»V  «>'  California^ 

IRVINE^ 


PORTRAITS   AND 
SKETCHES 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 
Uniform  with  this  Volume 

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY  STUDIES 
GOSSIP  IN  A  LIBRARY 
FRENCH  PROFILES 
CRITICAL  KIT-KATS 

NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


PORTRAITS  AND 
SKETCHES 


BY 

EDMUND    GOSSE,    C.B. 

AUTHOR  OF   "FATHER   AND  SON" 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1914 


Printed  in  Englanj 


TO 

H.  OF  C. 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

THESE  short  studies  of  authors  whom  I  have  known 
more  or  less  intimately,  and  have  observed  with 
curiosity  and  admiration,  base  whatever  value  they 
may  possess  on  their  independence.  They  are 
imperfect,  perhaps  erroneous,  but  they  are  not 
second-hand.  Whether  they  are  the  result  of  a 
few  flashing  glimpses,  or  of  the  patient  scrutiny  of 
many  years,  in  either  case  they  are  my  own.  I  hope 
that  some  of  them,  at  least,  may  be  found  to  possess 
the  interest  which  attaches  to  even  a  rude  pencil- 
sketch  of  a  famous  person,  drawn  faithfully  from 
the  life. 

The  persons  dealt  with  are  of  widely  differing 
importance,  and  it  is  probable  that  posterity  will 
intensify  the  distinction  between  them.  Some 
names  are  here  included  which  history  may  neglect 
altogether ;  here  are  others  which  we  believe  will 
become  more  and  more  luminous  with  the  passage 
of  years.  But  the  men  discussed  in  the  following 
pages  had  the  common  characteristic  of  devotion  to 
literature  ;  all  were  writers,  and  each  had,  in  his  own 
time  and  way,  a  serious  and  even  a  passionate  con- 
ception of  the  responsibilities  of  the  art  of  writing. 
They  were  all,  in  their  various  capacities,  engaged 


viii  Preface 

in  keeping  bright,  and  in  passing  on  unquenched, 
the  torch  of  literary  tradition. 

In  the  case  of  such  men  of  letters,  there  has 
always  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  singular  interest  in 
observing  how  personal  character  acts  upon  the 
work  performed.  It  is  less  entertaining,  for  instance, 
to  dwell  exclusively  on  the  verses  of  a  poet,  or  ex- 
clusively on  the  incidents  of  his  life,  than  to  attempt 
the  more  complicated  study  of  these  elements  in 
inter-relation  to  one  another,  as  has  been  done,  but 
only  too  rarely,  in  the  best  critical  biographies. 
M.  Paul  Desjardins,  in  an  amusing  and  illuminating 
phrase,  speaks  of  "  la  cinematographic  d'une  abeille 
dans  le  mystere  de  la  mellification."  This,  I  confess, 
is  what  I  like  best  in  a  literary  biography,  and  it  is 
what  I  have  attempted  to  produce.  To  analyse  the 
honey  is  one  thing,  and  to  dissect  the  bee  another ; 
but  I  find  a  special  pleasure  in  watching  him,  myself 
unobserved,  in  the  act  of  building  up  and  filling  the 
cells.  In  what  I  have  recorded,  I  have  tried  to 
concentrate  attention,  not  on  vague  anecdotes  and 
empty  tricks  of  conduct,  but  on  such  traits  of 
character  as  throw  light  on  the  man's  intellect  and 
imagination,  and  are  calculated  to  help  us  in  the 
enjoyment  of  his  work.  And  while  I  hope  I  have 
never  courted  sensation  by  recounting  anything 
scandalous,  I  have  not  hesitated  to  tell  what  I 
believe  to  be  the  truth,  nor  glossed  over  pecu- 
liarities of  temperament  when  they  help  us  to 
comprehend  the  published  writings. 

Of  all  the  human  beings  whom  I  have  known 


Preface 


IX 


I  think  that  Algernon  Swinburne  was  the  most 
extraordinary.  It  is  therefore  needless  to  excuse 
the  length  of  the  essay  with  which  this  volume 
opens.  Hitherto  little  that  is  trustworthy  has  been 
published  about  this  amazing  man,  around  whose 
career  a  good  deal  of  legend  has  at  one  time  or 
another  crystallised.  He  was  so  much  of  a  hermit 
of  late  years  that  curiosity  has  been  glad  to  satisfy 
itself  with  tales  which  were  picturesque  although 
they  were  unfounded.  I  hope  to  start  the  work, 
which  others  will  continue  and  make  perfect,  of 
preserving  the  true  features  of  Swinburne  as  a  poet 
and  as  a  person.  My  recollections  of  his  person 
and  character  are  limited  and  imperfect,  and  no  one 
is  more  conscious  of  their  imperfection  than  I  am  ; 
but  so  far  as  I  can  ensure  fidelity  to  the  truth,  they 
are  true ;  and  I  cannot  help  hoping  that  they  will 
be  of  service  to  those,  perhaps  still  unborn,  who 
will  elaborate  the  final  portrait.  Whatever  vicis- 
situdes of  taste  our  literature  may  undergo,  one 
thing  appears  to  me  absolutely  certain,  that  Swin- 
burne will  end  by  taking  his  place  as  one  of  the  fev) 
unchallenged  Immortals,  about  whose  personal  and 
intellectual  habits  no  faithful  record  is  unwelcome. 
In"Festus"  Bailey  and  "Orion"  Home  we  have 
typical  products  of  the  transitional  period  between 
Shelley  and  Keats  on  the  one  hand  and  Tennyson 
and  Browning  on  the  other.  Those  who  had  an 
opportunity  of  conversing  with  these  interesting 
and  pathetic  figures  in  their  old  age  are  growing 
rare,  while  no  life  of  either  of  them  has  appeared. 

b 


x  Preface 

My  recollections  of  Mandell  Creighton  were  written 
down  before  the  appearance  of  the  "  Life "  of 
him  published  by  his  accomplished  widow.  Mrs. 
Creighton's  view  of  her  husband's  character,although 
so  exhaustive  and  so  largely  illuminated  by  docu- 
ments, was  pre-eminently  ecclesiastical ;  I  venture 
to  hope  that  there  is  therefore  still  an  excuse  for 
preserving  the  reminiscences  of  a  lay  friend,  as  an 
appendix  to  her  excellent  monument.  This  is  still 
more  the  case  in  respect  to  Shorthouse,  where  the 
official  biography,  I  am  bound  to  confess,  seems  to 
me  to  present  not  an  imperfect  so  much  as  a  false 
impression  of  a  very  singular  person.  The  great 
danger  of  twentieth-century  biography  is  its  un- 
willingness to  accept  any  man's  character  save  at 
the  valuation  of  his  most  cautious  relatives,  and  in 
consequence  to  reduce  all  figures  to  the  same 
smooth  forms  and  the  same  mediocre  proportions. 

The  last  portrait  in  my  little  gallery  is  more 
obviously  unfinished  than  any  of  the  rest.  If  the 
presence  of  M.  Andre"  Gide  among  so  many  of  those 
who  have  passed  away  is  objected  to,  I  will  say  that 
I  like  to  feel  that  I  take  one  living  friend  with  me  in 
my  round  of  respectful  visits  to  the  dead.  His  is 
not  a  portrait ;  it  is  hardly  an  outline ;  but  I  wish 
to  delay  no  longer  in  recommending  to  the  study 
of  English  readers  a  fascinating  writer,  still  young, 
who  is  destined  I  believe  to  take  a  place  in  the  very 
first  rank  of  European  writers. 

September  1912  EDMUND   GOSSE 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE  vii 

SWINBURNE 

PHILIP  JAMES  BAILEY 

"ORION"  HORNE 

AUBREY  DE  VERE 

A  FIRST  SIGHT  OF  TENNYSON 

A  VISIT  TO  WHITTIER 

THE  AUTHOR  OF  "JOHN  INGLESANT" 

MANDELL  CREIGHTON 

ANDREW  LANG 

WOLCOTT  BALESTIER 

CARL  SNOILSKY 

EUGENE  MELCHIOR  DE  VOGUE 

ANDRE  GIDE 

INDEX 


SWINBURNE 

1837-1909 


SWINBURNE 

MEN  who  to-day  have  not  passed  middle  age  can 
scarcely  form  an  impression  of  what  the  name  and 
fame  of  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  meant  forty 
years  ago  to  those  who  were  then  young  and  enthu- 
siastic candidates  for  apprenticeship  in  the  fine  arts. 
Criticism  now  looks  upon  his  work — and  possibly  it 
is  right  in  so  looking — rather  as  closing  than  as 
opening  a  great  poetic  era.  The  conception  is  of  a 
talent  which  collects  all  the  detonating  elements  of 
a  previous  illumination,  and  lets  them  off,  once  and 
for  all,  in  a  prodigious  culminating  explosion,  after 
which  darkness  ensues.  But  such  a  conception  of 
Swinburne,  as  the  floriated  termination  of  the  roman- 
tic edifice,  or,  once  more  to  change  the  image,  as 
one  who  brought  up  the  rear  of  a  long  and"  straggling 
army,  would  have  seemed  to  his  adorers  of  1869  not 
merely  paradoxical  but  preposterous.  It  was  not 
doubted  by  any  of  his  admirers  that  here  they  held 
an  incomparable  poet  of  a  new  order,  "  the  fairest 
first-born  son  of  fire,"  who  was  to  inaugurate  a  new 
age  of  lyric  gold. 

This  conception  was  shared  alike  by  the  few  who 
in  those  days  knew  him  personally,  and  by  the  many 
who  did  not.  While  the  present  writer  was  still  in 


Portraits  and  Sketches 


that  outer  class,  he  well  remembers  being  told  that 
an  audience  of  the  elect,  to  whom  Swinburne  recited 
the  yet  unpublished  "  Dolores,"  had  been  moved  to 
such  incredible  ecstasy  by  it  that  several  of  them 
had  sunk  on  their  knees,  then  and  there,  and  adored 
him  as  a  god.  Those  were  blissful  times,  when 
poets  and  painters,  if  they  were  attached  to  Keats' 
"little  clan,"  might  hope  for  honours  which  were 
private  indeed,  and  strictly  limited,  but  almost  divine. 
The  extraordinary  reputation  of  Swinburne  in  the 
later  sixties  was  constructed  of  several  elements. 
It  was  built  up  on  the  legend  of  his  mysterious 
and  unprecedented  physical  appearance,  of  the 
astonishing  verbal  beauty  of  his  writings,  but  most 
of  all  on  his  defiance  of  the  intellectual  and  religious 
prejudices  of  his  age  and  generation.  He  was  not 
merely  a  poet,  but  a  flag  ;  and  not  merely  a  flag,  but 
the  Red  Flag  incarnate.  There  was  an  idea  abroad, 
and  it  was  not  ill-founded,  that  in  matters  of  taste 
the  age  in  England  had  for  some  time  been  stationary, 
if  not  stagnant.  It  was  necessary  to  wake  people 
up ;  as  Victor  Hugo  had  said  :  "  II  faut  rudoyer 
le  genre  humain,"  and  in  every  gesture  it  was 
believed  that  Swinburne  set  forth  to  "  rudoyer  "  the 
Philistines. 

This  was  welcome  to  all  young  persons  sitting  in 
bondage,  who  looked  up  to  Swinburne  as  to  the 
deliverer.  He  also  enjoyed,  in  popular  belief,  the 
advantage  of  excessive  youth.  In  point  of  fact,  his 
immaturity  was  not  so  dazzling  as  was  reported  by 
the  newspapers,  or,  alas  1  as  he  then  himself  reported. 


Swinburne  5 

When  "  Poems  and  Ballads "  appeared  he  was  in 
his  thirtieth  year,  yet  he  was  generally  reported 
to  be  only  twenty-four.  This  is  interesting  merely 
because  there  are  five  or  six  years  of  Swinburne's 
early  manhood  which  seem  to  be  without  any  visible 
history.  What  did  he  do  with  himself  between 
1860,  when  "The  Queen-Mother"  was  stillborn,  and 
1865,  when  he  flashed  into  universal  prominence  as 
the  author  of  "  Atalanta  in  Calydon  "  ?  On  the  large 
scale,  nothing ;  on  the  small  scale,  the  bibliographer 
(aided  by  the  indefatigable  Mr.  Thomas  J.  Wise) 
detects  the  review  of  Baudelaire's  "  Fleurs  du  Mai  " 
in  the  Spectator  (1862),  and  a  dim  sort  of  short 
story  in  prose  called  "Dead  Love"  (1864).  No 
doubt  this  was  a  time  of  tremendous  growth  in 
secret ;  but,  visibly,  no  flame  or  even  smoke  was 
ejected  from  the  crater  of  the  young  volcano. 
Swinburne  told  me  that  he  wrote  the  "Baudelaire" 
in  a  Turkish  bath  in  Paris.  (There  were  stranger 
groves  of  Academe  than  this.)  No  doubt  the 

O  * 

biographers  of  the  future,  intent  on  rubbing  the 
gold-dust  off  the  butterflies'  wings,  will  tell  us  every- 
thing  day  by  day.  Meanwhile,  these  early  years 
continue  to  be  delightfully  mysterious,  and  he  was 
nearly  thirty  when  he  dawned  in  splendour  on 
London. 

Swinburne's  second  period  lasted  from  1865  to 
1871.  This  was  the  blossoming-time  of  the  aloe, 
when  its  acute  perfume  first  filled  the  literary  salons, 
and  then  emptied  them  ;  when  for  a  very  short  time 
the  poet  emerged  from  his  life-long  privacy  and  trod 


Portraits  and  Sketches 


the  social  stage.  The  experiment  culminated,  1 
suppose,  in  his  solitary  public  utterance.  He  might 
be  called  "  Single-speech  Swinburne,"  since  positively 
his  only  performance  on  his  legs  was  an  after-dinner 
oration,  in  May  1866,  when  he  responded  to  the 
toast  of  "The  Imaginative  Literature  of  England" 
at  Willis's  Rooms.  This  second  period  was  brilliant, 
but  stormy.  Swinburne  was  constitutionally  unfitted 
to  shine  in  mixed  society.  The  events  in  his  career 
now  came  fast  and  thick.  The  "  Atalanta,"  acclaimed 
in  1865,  had  been  followed  later  in  the  same  year  by 
"  Chastelard,"  which  made  old  men  begin  to  dream 
dreams,  and  in  1866  by  "  Poems  and  Ballads,"  which 
roused  a  scandal  unparalleled  since  Byron  left 
England  exactly  half  a  century  before. 

Then,  when  the  fury  of  the  public  was  at  its 
height,  there  was  a  meeting  between  Jowett  and 
Mazzini,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  George  Howard 
(afterwards  the  ninth  Earl  of  Carlisle),  to  discuss 
"  what  can  be  done  with  and  for  Algernon."  And 
then  there  came  the  dedication  to  the  Republic, 
"  the  beacon-bright  Republic  far-off  sighted,"  and 
all  the  fervour  and  intellectual  frenzies  were  success- 
fully diverted  from  "  such  tendrils  as  the  wild  Loves 
wear"  to  the  luminous  phantasms  of  liberty  and 
tyrannicide,  to  the  stripping  of  the  muffled  souls 
of  kings,  and  to  all  the  other  glorious,  generous 
absurdities  of  the  Mazzini-haunted  "Songs  before 
Sunrise"  (1871).  This  was  the  period  when,  after 
an  unlucky  experience  of  London  Society,  the  poet 
fled  to  the  solitudes  again,  and  nearly  lost  his  life 


Swinburne  7 

swimming  in  the  harbour  of  Etretat.  Of  this  episode 
I  shall  presently  give  a  full  account.  The  autumn 
of  1870  saw  him  once  again  in  London.  It  is  at  this 
moment,  when  Swinburne  was  in  his  thirty-fourth 
year,  that  the  recollections  which  I  venture  to  set 
down  before  they  be  forgotten  practically  begin. 
They  represent  the  emotional  observations  of  a  boy 
on  whom  this  mysterious  and  almost  symbolical 
luminary  turned  those  full  beams  which  were  then 
and  afterwards  so  thriftily  withdrawn  from  the  world 
at  large. 

That  I  may  escape  as  quickly  as  possible  from  the 
necessity  of  speaking  of  myself,  and  yet  may  detail 
the  credentials  of  my  reminiscences,  let  me  say  that 
my  earliest  letter  from  Swinburne  was  dated  Sep- 
tember 14,  1867,  when  I  was  still  in  my  eighteenth 
year,  and  that  I  first  saw  him  in  1868.  I  was  not 
presented  to  him,  however,  until  the  last  week  in 
1870,  when,  in  a  note  from  the  kind  hostess  who 
brought  us  together,  I  find  it  stated:  "Algernon 
took  to  you  at  once,  as  is  seldom  the  case  with  him." 
In  spite  of  this  happy  beginning,  the  acquaintance 
remained  superficial  until  1873,  when,  I  hardly 
know  how,  it  ripened  suddenly  into  an  intimate 
friendship.  From  that  time  until  he  left  London 
for  good  in  the  autumn  of  1879  I  saw  Swinburne 
very  frequently  indeed,  and  for  several  years  later 
than  that  our  intercourse  continued  to  be  close. 
These  relations  were  never  interrupted,  except  by 
his  increasing  deafness  and  general  disinclination  to 
leave  home.  I  would,  then,  say  that  the  memories 


8  Portraits  and  Sketches 

I  venture  to  bring  forward  deal  mainly  with  the 
years  from  1873  to  1880,  but  extend  a  little  before 
and  after  that  date. 


The  physical  conditions  which  accompany  and 
affect  what  we  call  genius  are  obscure,  and  have 
hitherto  attracted  little  but  empirical  notice.  It  is 
impossible  not  to  see  that  the  absolutely  normal  man 
or  woman,  as  we  describe  normality,  is  very  rarely 
indeed  an  inventor,  or  a  seer,  or  even  a  person  of 
remarkable  mental  energy.  The  bulk  of  what  are 
called  entirely  "  healthy  "  people  add  nothing  to  the 
sum  of  human  achievement,  and  it  is  not  the  average 
navvy  who  makes  a  Darwin,  nor  the  typical  daughter 
of  the  plough  who  develops  into  an  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning.  There  are  probably  few  professional  men 
who  offer  a  more  insidious  attack  upon  all  that  in 
the  past  has  made  life  variegated  and  interesting 
than  the  school  of  robust  and  old  -  fashioned 
physicians  who  theorise  on  eccentricity,  on  varia- 
tions of  the  type,  as  necessarily  evil  and  obviously 
to  be  stamped  out,  if  possible,  by  the  State.  The 
more  closely  we  study,  with  extremely  slender 
resources  of  evidence,  the  lives  of  great  men  of 
imagination  and  action  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world,  the  more  clearly  we  ought  to  recognise  that 
a  reduction  of  all  the  types  to  one  stolid  uniformity 
of  what  is  called  "  health  "  would  have  the  effect  of 
depriving  humanity  of  precisely  those  individuals 


Swinburne  9 

who  have  added  most  to  the  beauty  and  variety  of 
human  existence. 

This  question  is  one  which  must  in  the  near 
future  attract  the  close  and  sympathetic  attention 
of  the  medical  specialist.  At  present  there  seems 
to  be  an  almost  universal  confusion  between  mor- 
bid aberration  and  wholesome  abnormality.  The 
presence  of  the  latter  amongst  us  is,  indeed,  scarcely 
recognised,  and  an  unusual  individuality  is  almost 
invariably  treated  as  a  subject  either  of  disease  or  of 
affected  oddity.  When  the  physical  conditions  of  men 
of  the  highest  celebrity  in  the  past  are  touched  upon, 
it  is  usual  to  pass  them  over  with  indifference,  or 
else  to  account  for  them  as  the  results  of  disease. 
The  peculiarities  of  Pascal,  or  of  Pope,  or  of 
Michelangelo  are  either  denied,  or  it  is  presumed 
that  they  were  the  result  of  purely  morbid  factors 
against  which  their  genius,  their  rectitude,  or  their 
common-sense  more  or  less  successfully  contended. 
It  is  admitted  that  Tasso  had  a  hypersensitive  con- 
stitution, which  cruelty  tortured  into  melancholia, 
but  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  he  would -have  been  a 
greater  poet  if  he  had  taken  plenty  of  outdoor 
exercise.  Descartes  was  of  a  different  opinion,  for 
though  his  body  was  regarded  as  feeble  and  some- 
what abnormal,  he  considered  it  a  machine  well 
suited  to  his  own  purposes,  and  was  convinced  that 
the  Cartesian  philosophy  would  not  have  been  im- 
proved, though  the  philosopher's  digestion  might, 
by  his  developing  the  thews  of  a  ploughboy. 

These  reflections  are  natural  in  looking  back  upon 


io  Portraits  and  Sketches 

the  constitution  of  Swinburne,  which  1  believe  to 
have  been  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  that  have 
been  observed  in  our  time.  It  would  be  a  pity  if  its 
characteristics  should  be  obscured  by  caricature  on 
the  one  hand  or  by  false  sentiment  on  the  other.  In 
the  daysj  when  I  watched  him  closely  I  found 
myself  constantly  startled  by  the  physical  problem  : 
What  place  has  this  singular  being  in  the  genus 
homo  f  It  would  easily  be  settled  by  the  vague 
formula  of  "  degeneration,"  but  to  a  careful  eye 
there  was  nothing  in  Swinburne  of  what  is  known 
as  the  debased  or  perverse  type.  The  stigmata  of 
the  degenerate,  such  as  we  have  been  taught  to  note 
them,  were  entirely  absent.  Here  were,  to  the  out- 
ward and  untechnical  perception  at  least,  no  radical 
effects  of  disease,  hereditary  or  acquired.  He  stood 
on  a  different  physical  footing  from  other  men  ;  he 
formed,  as  Cowley  said  of  Pindar,  "  a  vast  species 
alone."  If  there  had  been  a  planet  peopled  by 
Swinburnes,  he  would  have  passed  as  an  active, 
healthy,  normal  specimen  of  it.  All  that  was  extra- 
ordinary in  him  was  not,  apparently,  the  result  of 
ill-health,  but  of  individual  and  inborn  peculiarity. 

The  world  is  familiar  from  portraits,  and  still 
better  from  caricatures,  with  his  unique  appearance. 
He  was  short,  with  sloping  shoulders,  from  which 
rose  a  long  and  slender  neck,  surmounted  by  a  very 
large  head.  The  cranium  seemed  to  be  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  structure.  His  spine 
was  rigid,  and  though  he  often  bowed  the  heaviness 
of  his  head,  lasso  papavera  collo,  he  seemed  never  to 


Swinburne  1 1 

bend  his  back.  Except  in  consequence  of  a  certain 
physical  weakness,  (which  probably  may,  in  more 
philosophical  days,  come  to  be  accounted  for  and 
palliated — except  when  suffering  from  this  external 
cause,  he  seemed  immune  from  all  the  maladies 
that  pursue  mankind.  He  did  not  know  fatigue  ; 
his  agility  and  brightness  were  almost  mechanical. 
I  never  heard  him  complain  of  a  headache  or  of 
a  toothache.  He  required  very  little  sleep,  and 
occasionally  when  I  have  parted  from  him  in  the 
evening  after  saying  "  Good-night,"  he  has  simply 
sat  back  in  the  deep  sofa  in  ;  his  sitting-room,  his 
little  feet  close  together,  his  arms  against  his  side, 
folded  in  his  frock-coat  like  a  grasshopper  in  its 
wing-covers,  and  fallen  asleep,  apparently  for  the 
night,  before  I  could  blow  out  the  candles  and 
steal  forth  from  the  door.  I  am  speaking,  of  course, 
of  early  days  ;  it  was  thus  about  1875  that  I  closely 
observed  him. 

He  was  more  a  hypertrophied  intelligence  than 
a  man.  His  vast  brain  seemed  to  weigh  down 
and  give  solidity  to  a  frame  otherwise  as  light 
as  thistledown,  a  body  almost  as  immaterial  .as 
that  of  a  fairy.  In  the  streets  he  had  the  move- 
ments of  a  somnambulist,  and  often  I  have  seen 
him  passing  like  a  ghost  across  the  traffic  of 
Holborn,  or  threading  the  pressure  of  carts  east- 
ward in  Gray's  Inn  Road,  without  glancing  to  the 
left  or  the  right,  like  something  blown  before  a 
wind.  At  that  time  I  held  a  humble  post  at  the 
British  Museum,  from  which  I  was  freed  at  four 


12  Portraits  and  Sketches 

o'clock,  and  Swinburne  liked  to  arrange  to  meet  me 
half-way  between  that  monument  and  his  own 
lodgings.  One  of  Swinburne's  peculiarities  was  an 
extreme  punctuality,  and  we  seldom  failed  to  meet  on 
the  deserted  northern  pavement  of  Great  Coram 
Street.  But  although  the  meeting  was  of  his  own 
making,  and  the  person  to  be  met  a  friend  seen  every 
day,  if  I  stood  a  couple  of  yards  before  him  silent,  he 
would  endeavour  to  escape  on  one  side  and  then  on 
the  other,  giving  a  great  shout  of  satisfaction  when  at 
length  his  eyes  focused  on  my  face. 

He  was  very  fond  of  talking  about  his  feats  of 
swimming  and  riding  as  a  boy,  and  no  other  poet 
has  written  about  the  former  exercise  with  so  much 
felicity  and  ardour : 

As  one  that  ere  a  June  day  rise 

Makes  seaward  for  the  dawn,  and  tries 
The  water  with  delighted  limbs, 
That  tastes  the  sweet  dark  sea,  and  swims 

Right  eastward  under  strengthening  skies, 
And  sees  the  gradual  rippling  rims 

Of  waves  whence  day  breaks  blossom- wise 
Takejire  ere  light  peer  well  above, 
And  laughs  from  all  his  heart  with  love  ; 

And  softlier  swimming,  with  raised  head, 
Feels  the  full  flower  of  morning  shed, 

And  fluent  sunrise  round  him  rolled, 

That  laps  and  laves  his  body  bold 
With  fluctuant  heaven  in  water's  stead, 

And  urgent  through  the  growing  gold 
Strikes,  and  sees  all  the  spray  flash  red. 


Swinburne  13 

And  his  soul  takes  the  sun,  and  yearns 

For  joy  wherewith  the  sea's  heart  burns.  .  .  . 

There  is  nothing  to  approach  it  elsewhere  in  litera- 
ture. It  was  founded  on  experience  in  the  surf  of 
Northumberland,  and  Swinburne's  courage  and  zest 
as  a  bather  were  superb.  But  I  was  assured  by 
earlier  companions  that  he  made  remarkably  little 
way  by  swimming,  and  that  his  feats  were  mainly  of 
floating,  his  little  body  tossing  on  the  breakers  like 
a  cork.  His  father,  the  admiral,  had  taught  him  to 
plunge  in  the  sea  when  he  was  a  very  little  child, 
taking  him  up  in  his  arms  and  flinging  him  out 
among  the  waves.  His  cousin,  Lord  Redesdale, 
tells  me  that  at  Eton  Algernon  "  could  swim  for 
ever,"  but  he  was  always  muscularly  feeble,  making 
up  for  this  deficiency  by  his  splendid  courage  and 
confidence. 

No  physiologist  who  studied  the  corporeal  condi- 
tion of  Swinburne  could  avoid  observing  the  violent 
elevation  of  spirits  to  which  he  was  constantly 
subject.  The  slightest  emotional  excitement,  of 
anger,  or  pleasure,  or  admiration,  sent  him  into 
a  state  which  could  scarcely  be  called  anything  but 
convulsive.  He  was  like  that  little  geyser  in 
Iceland  which  is  always  simmering,  but  which,  if  it 
is  irritated  by  having  pieces  of  turf  thrown  into  it, 
instantly  boils  over  and  flings  its  menacing  column 
at  the  sky.  I  was  never  able  to  persuade  myself 
whether  the  extraordinary  spasmodic  action  of  the 
arms  and  legs  which  accompanied  these  paroxysms 


14  Portraits  and  Sketches 

was  the  result  of  nature  or  habit.  It  was  violent 
and  it  was  long-continued,  but  I  never  saw  that  it 
produced  fatigue.  It  gradually  subsided  into  a 
graceful  and  smiling  calm,  sometimes  even  into 
somnolence,  out  of  which,  however,  a  provocative 
remark  would  instantly  call  up  again  the  surprising 
spasm  of  the  geyser.  The  poet's  surviving  sister, 
Miss  Isabel  Swinburne,  tells  me  that  this  trick  of 
stiffly  drawing  down  his  arms  from  the  shoulders 
and  giving  a  rapid  vibratory  movement  to  his  hands 
was  voluntary  in  childhood  ;  she  considers  that  it 
spoiled  his  shoulders  and  made  them  sloping.  In 
later  years  I  am  sure  it  had  become  instinctive  and 
unconscious.  She  describes  to  me  also  the  extra- 
ordinary ecstasy  which  shook  his  body  and  lighted 
up  his  face  when  reading  a  book^  which  delighted 
him  or  when  speaking  of  any  intellectual  pleasure. 
Swinburne  seemed  to  me  to  divide  his  hours 
between  violent  cerebral  excitement  and  sheer 
immobility,  mental  and  physical.  He  would  sit  for 
a  long  time  together  without  stirring  a  limb,  his 
eyes  fixed  in  a  sort  of  trance,  and  only  his  lips 
shifting  and  shivering  a  little,  without  a  sound. 

The  conception  of  Swinburne,  indeed,  as  inces- 
santly flamboyant  and  convulsive  is  so  common 
that  it  may  be  of  value  to  note  that  he  was,  on 
the  contrary,  sometimes  pathetically  plaintive  and 
distressed.  The  following  impression,  written 
down  next  day  (January  4,  1878),  reveals  a 
Swinburne  little  imagined  by  the  public,  but 
frequently  enough  to  be  observed  in  those  days  by 


Swinburne  1 5 

intimate  friends.  It  describes  a  slightly  later  condition 
than  that  on  which  I  have  hitherto  dwelt : 

"  Swinburne  has  become  very  much  at  home 
with  us,  and,  knowing  our  eating-times,  he  drops  in 
every  fortnight  or  so  to  dinner,  and  stays  through 
the  evening.  All  this  winter  he  has  been  noticeably 
worn  and  feeble,  sometimes  tottering  like  an  old 
man,  and  glad  to  accept  a  hand  to  help  him  up  and 
down  stairs.  I  hear  he  is  very  violent  between 
whiles,  but  he  generally  visits  us  during  the 
exhaustion  and  depression  which  follow  his  fits  of 
excitement,  when  he  is  tired  of  his  loneliness  at 
Great  James  Street,  and  seems  to  crave  the  comfort 
of  home-life  and  the  petting  that  we  lavish  on  him. 
Last  night  he  arrived  about  5  P.M.  ;  he  was  waiting 
for  me  when  I  came  back  from  the  office.  The 
maid  had  seen  him  into  my  study,  brightened  the 
fire  and  raised  the  lamp,  but  although  she  left  him 
cosily  seated  under  the  light,  I  found  him  mourn- 
fully wandering,  like  a  lost  thing,  on  the  staircase. 
We  happened  to  be  quite  alone,  and  he  stayed 
on  for  six  hours.  He  was  extremely  gentle,  bright, 
and  sensible  at  dinner,  full  of  gay  talk  about  early 
memories,  his  recollections  of  Dickens,  and  odd 
anecdotes  of  older  Oxford  friends,  Jowett,  Stubbs, 
and  the  present  Bishop  of  Ely  [James  Russell 
Woodford],  Directly  dinner  was  over  he  insisted 
on  seeing  the  baby,  whom  on  these  occasions  he 
always  kisses,  and  worships  on  his  knees,  and  is 
very  fantastic  over.  When  he  and  I  were  alone,  he 
closed  up  to  the  fire,  his  great  head  bowed,  his 


1 6  Portraits  and  Sketches 

knees  held  tight  together,  and  his  finger-tips  pressed 
to  his  chest,  in  what  I  call  his  '  penitential '  attitude, 
and  he  began  a  long  tale,  plaintive  and  rather 
vague,  about  his  loneliness,  the  sadness  of  his  life, 
the  suffering  he  experiences  from  the  slanders  of 
others.  He  said  that  George  Eliot  was  hounding 
on  her  myrmidons  to  his  destruction.  I  made  out 
that  this  referred  to  some  attack  in  a  newspaper 
which  he  supposes,  very  groundlessly  I  expect, 
to  be  inspired  by  George  Eliot.  Swinburne  said 
that  a  little  while  ago  he  found  his  intellectual 
energy  succumbing  under  a  morbid  distress  at  his 
isolation,  and  that  he  had  been  obliged  steadily  to 
review  before  his  conscience  his  imaginative  life  in 
order  to  prevent  himself  from  sinking  into  despair. 
This  is  only  a  mood,  to  be  sure  ;  but  if  there 
be  any  people  who  think  so  ill  of  him,  I  only  wish 
they  could  see  him  as  we  see  him  at  these  recupera- 
tive intervals.  Whatever  he  may  be  elsewhere,  in 
our  household  not  a  kinder,  simpler,  or  more 
affectionate  creature  could  be  desired  as  a  visitor. 
The  only  fault  we  find  with  him  is  that  his  little 
mournful  ways  and  his  fragility  drag  painfully  upon 
our  sympathy." 

This,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  not  the  Swinburne  of 
legend  in  the  seventies,  and  that  it  is  so  different 
may  be  judged,  I  hope,  my  excuse  for  recording  it. 
A  very  sensible  further  change  came  over  him 
when  he  was  attacked  by  deafness,  an  infirmity  to 
which,  I  believe,  most  members  of  his  family  have 
been  liable.  I  do  not  think  that  I  noticed  any 


Swinburne  17 

hardness  of  hearing  until  1880,  when  the  affliction 
rapidly  developed.  He  was,  naturally,  very  much 
concerned  at  it,  and  in  the  summer  of  that  year  he 
wrote  to  a  lady  of  my  household,  "  If  this  gets  worse 
I  shall  become  wholly  unfit  to  mix  in  any  society 
where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together."  It  did 
get  worse  ;  it  was  constitutional  and  incurable,  and 
for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  of  his  life  he 
was  almost  impervious  to  outward  sound.  All  the 
more,  therefore,  was  he  dependent  on  the  care 
of  the  devoted  friend  who  thenceforward  guarded 
him  so  tenderly. 


II 

The  year  1868  was  one  of  the  most  troubled  in 
Swinburne's  existence.  He  had  now  reached  his 
thirty-second  year,  and  there  had  succeeded  a 
reaction  to  his  juvenile  flow  of  animal  spirits,  to  his 
inexhaustible  fecundity,  and  even  to  the  violent 
celebrity  which  had  stimulated  and  incited  him  as 
with  the  sting  of  a  gad-fly.  His  first  period  of 
creative  energy  had  come  to  a  close,  and  he  had  not 
yet  begun,  or  only  now  was  beginning  to  launch 
steadily  upon,  his  second,  namely,  the  celebration  in 
transcendental  verse,  and  under  the  auspices  of 
Mazzini,  of  the  ideal  and  indivisible  Republic.  He 
was  dejected  in  mind  and  ailing  in  body ;  the 
wonderful  colours  of  youth  were  now  first  beginning 
to  fade  out  of  his  miraculous  eyes  and  hair.  In 

B 


1 8  Portraits  and  Sketches 

April,  having  written  "The  Hymn  of  Man,"  and 
having  sent  his  great  prose  monograph  on  "  William 
Blake  "  to  the  press,  Swinburne  paused  and  looked 
round  him  with  a  melancholy  which  had  never 
afflicted  him  before.  He  complained,  humorously 
and  angrily,  of  "illness  hardly  intermittent  during 
weeks  and  months  of  weather  which  would  have 
disgraced  hell  and  raised  a  revolution  among  devils." 
His  principal  pleasure  was  the  encouragement  given 
him  by  Mazzini,  "my  beloved  Chief,  still  with  us, 
very  ill  and  indomitable,  and  sad  and  kind  as  ever." 
"Siena"  was  finished  in  May,  and  "  Tiresias "  was 
begun  in  June.  Swinburne  was  doggedly  and  pain- 
fully working  at  what  he  always  called  "His  book,"  the 
Chief's  book,  the  volume  of  political  lyrics  which 
Mazzini  had  commanded  him  to  write  for  the  glory 
of  Liberty  and  Italia. 

It  was  in  the  evening  of  July  10,  1868,  that  I  first 
cast  icyes  on  the  poet  who  was  at  that  time  the 
divinity,  the  object  of  feverish  worship,  to  every 
budding  artist  and  faltering  singer  in  England.  The 
occasion  was  accidental,  the  circumstances  painful ; 
it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  idol  was  revealed  to  the 
juvenile  worshipper  at  a  startling  moment  of  physical 
suffering  and  distress,  and  that  the  impression  was 
one  of  curious  terror,  never,  even  under  happier 
auspices,  to  be  wholly  removed.  I  shall  not  lose  that 
earliest,  and  entirely  unanticipated,  image  of  a  lan- 
guishing and  pain-stricken  Swinburne,  like  some  odd 
conception  of  Aubrey  Beardsley,  a  Cupido  crucifixus 
on  a  chair  of  anguish.  I  recall  it  here  because, 


Swinburne  19 

although  in  truth  he  was  not  nearly  so  ill  as  he  looked, 
this  apparition  explains  to  me  the  imperative  neces- 
sity which  his  friends  found  in  the  summer  of  that 
year  to  get  him  away  from  London,  away  from 
England,  and  if  so,  whither,  if  not  to  his  beloved 
France  ? 

It  was  projected  that,  so  soon  as  he  was  well 
enough  to  move,  he  should  go  over  to  Boulogne^ 
where  a  Welsh  friend,  Mr.  Powell  of  Nant-E6s,  was 
to  receive  him.  But  this  was  not  found  immediately 
possible  ;  the  poet's  journey  was  delayed,  partly  by 
his  own  continued  weakness,  then  by  an  illness  of 
his  mother,  so  that  it  was  not  until  September  that 
he  joined  Powell  at  Etretat.  Of  this,  his  preliminary 
stay  there,  little  record  seems  to  remain.  It  was 
already  late  for  bathing,  and  the  weather  turned 
bad.  The  party  soon  broke  up.  But  Swinburne 
stayed  long  enough  to  form  a  great  liking  for  the 
village,  which  was  anything  but  the  fashionable 
watering-place  which  it  has  since  grown  to  be.  It 
was  a  cluster  of  little  old  houses,  with  whitewashed 
walls  and  turfed  roofs,  inhabited  by  a  sturdy  race  of 
Norman  fishermen.  Etretat  had  been  "  discovered  " 
about  ten  years  before  this  time  by  certain  artists, 
particularly  by  Isabey  and  by  the  younger  Clarkson 
Stanfield,  all  of  whom  kept  their  "  discovery  "  very 
quiet.  But  Alphonse  Karr,  in  his  novels,  had  been 
unable  to  preserve  a  like  reticence,  and  Paris  had 
now  waked  up  to  the  picturesque  capacities  of 
Etretat.  Villas  were  beginning  to  be  built  along  the 
edge  of  the  two  chalk  cliffs  and  down  the  Grand  Val. 


2O  Portraits  and  Sketches 

It  was  none  of  these  little  smart  villas,  it  was  a 
dwelling  of  the  local  Norman  type,  which  was  to 
be  identified  in  such  a  curious  way  with  the  legend 
of  Swinburne. 

Whether  the  purchase  had  already  been  made,  or 
whether  it  was  concluded  after  Swinburne  left, 
or  whether  indeed  the  little  place  was  not  simply 
rented,  year  after  year — at  all  events  the  beautified 
cottage  in  question  passed  about  this  time  into  the 
possession  of  Powell,  who  lived  there  for  several 
years  and  entertained  Swinburne  summer  after 
summer.  He  became  an  astonishing  figure  of 
eccentricity  in  the  eyes  of  the  simple  fishermen  of 
Etretat.  It  was  he  or  Swinburne,  or  the  precious 
pair  of  farceurs  together,  who  gave  the  little  house 
the  sinister  name  of  the  Chaumiere  de  Dolmance, 
which  presupposed  a  considerable  amount  of  out- 
of-the-way  reading  in  the  passer-by  who  was  to  be 
scandalised.  It  did  not  scandalise,  but  very  much 
"  intrigued  "  a  sturdy  youth  who  often  crossed  its 
painted  legend  in  his  holidays,  and  who  had  already 
read  enough  "  undesirable "  literature  to  wonder 
what  this  was  all  about,  and  what  odd  beings  chose 
to  advertise  that  they  inhabited  the  Chaumiere  de 
Dolmanc6.  It  is  necessary  to  sweep  away  a  good 
many  cobwebs  of  romance  in  dealing  with  the  rela- 
tions between  Swinburne  and  Guy  de  Maupassant  ; 
for  the  sturdy  youth  was  no  other  than  he.  In  the 
following  pages  I  hope  to  clear  up,  in  some  measure, 
the  mystification  which  each  of  them  wove  around 
the  legend  in  later  years. 


Swinburne  21 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  needful  to  understand  that 
Maupassant  was  not  the  famous  writer  he  after- 
wards became.  He  was  a  youth  of  eighteen,  and 
six  years  were  to  elapse  before  his  nostrils  snuffed 
up  the  odour  of  printers'  ink.  Etretat  was  his 
mother's  summer  home.  Very  soon  after  his  birth 
Madame  de  Maupassant  bought  a  small  property  in 
the  Norman  village,  and  here  the  future  novelist's 
childhood  was  passed.  The  cure  of  Etretat  prepared 
him  for  school,  first  for  the  seminary  of  the  neigh- 
bouring town  of  Yvetot,  that  "citadel  of  Norman 
wit,"  and  afterwards  for  Rouen  ;  but  all  his  holidays 
were  spent  among  the  fishermen  of  Etretat,  going 
out  with  them  in  their  boats  by  day  and  night, 
wrestling  and  climbing  with  their  boys,  scaling  the 
slippery  chalk  cliffs  to  watch  for  their  returning 
sails.  It  was  not,  therefore,  a  scandal-mongering 
journalist  of  Paris  who  pushed  himself  on  the  notice 
of  the  two  Englishmen,  but  an  extremely  vivid  and 
observant  boy  practically  native  to  the  soil,  who 
examined  the  strange  visitors  with  a  wholly  legiti- 
mate curiosity.  The  good  faith  of  Guy  de  Maupas- 
sant, which  has  been  called  in  question,  must  be 
defended.  During  these  years,  and  till  the  war 
broke  out,  Maupassant  was  a  student  at  the  Lycee 
of  Rouen,  working  under  the  benevolent  eye  of 
Gustave  Flaubert,  rapidly  advancing  in  solid  physi- 
cal vigour,  but  giving  little  indication  of  his  future 
line  of  action  except  in  the  painful  writing  of  verses. 
He  was,  however,  preternaturally  wide-awake  ;  and 
sweeping  the  horizon  of  Etrelat,  he  became  aware, 


22  Portraits  and  Sketches 

summer   after   summer,   of   a   remarkable   pair    of 
exotics. 

The  incident  which  led  to  his  forming  Swin- 
burne's acquaintance  must  now  be  told  with  some 
minuteness,  partly  because,  as  an  adventure,  it  was 
the  most  important  in  the  poet's  career,  and  partly 
because  it  has  been  made  the  subject  of  many  vague 
and  contradictory  rumours.  Swinburne,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  was  a  daring  bather,  and  one  of  the 
main  attractions  of  Etretat  was  the  facility  it  gave  for 
exercise  in  the  sea.  On  a  certain  Friday  in  the  late 
summer  at  about  10  A.M.,  the  poet  went  down  alone 
to  a  solitary  point  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  plage, 
the  Porte  d'Amont — for  there  is  no  real  harbour  at 
Etretat — divested  himself  of  his  clothes,  and  plunged 
in,  as  was  his  wont.  The  next  thing  that  happened 
was  that  a  man  called  Coquerel,  who  was  on  the 
outlook  at  the  semaphore,  being  at  the  foot  of  the 
cliffs  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  bay,  heard  continued 
cries  for  help  and  ^piercing  screams.  He  climbed  up 
on  a  sort  of  rock  of  chalk,  called  Le  Bane  a  Cuve, 
and  perceived  that  a  swimmer,  who  had  been  caught 
by  the  tide,  which  runs  very  heavily  at  that  place, 
was  being  hurried  out  to  sea,  in  spite  of  the  violent 
efforts  which  he  was  making  to  struggle  for  his  life. 
As  it  was  impossible  for  Coquerel  to  do  anything 
else  to  help  the  drowning  man,  he  was  starting  to 
race  along  the  shore  to  Etretat,  when  he  saw 
coming  round  the  point  one  of  the  fishing-smacks 
of  the  village.  Coquerel  attracted  the  attention  of 
this  boat,  and  directed  the  captain  to  the  point  out 


Swinburne  23 

at  sea  where  Swinburne's  cries  were  growing  fainter 
and  further.  The  captain  of  the  smack  very  cleverly 
seized  the  situation,  and  followed  the  poet,  who 
had  now  ceased  to  struggle,  but  who  supported 
himself  by  floating  on  the  surface  of  the  tide. 
This  was  hurrying  him  along  so  swiftly  that  he 
was  not  picked  up  until  at  a  point  a  mile  to  the 
east-north-east  of  the  eastern  point  of  Etretat.  It 
is  a  great  pleasure  to  me,  after  more  than  forty 
years,  to  be  able  to  give  the  name  of  the  man 
who  saved  the  life  of  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of 
England.  I  hope  that  Captain  Theodule  Vallin 
may  be  remembered  with  gratitude  by  the  lovers 
of  literature. 

The  story  hitherto  is  from  Etretat  sources.  I  now 
take  it  up  as  Swinburne  told  it  to  me,  not  very  long 
after  the  event.  His  account  did  not  differ  in  any 
essential  degree  from  what  has  just  been  said.  But 
he  told  me  that  soon  after  having  left  the  Porte 
d'Amont  he  felt  the  under-current  of  the  tide  take 
possession  of  him,  and  he  was  carried  out  to  sea 
through  a  rocky  archway.  Now,  when  it  was  too  late, 
he  recollected  that  the  fishermen  had  warned  him 
that  he  ought  not  to  bathe  without  taking  the  tide 
into  consideration.  He  tried  to  turn,  to  get  out  of 
the  stream  ;  but  it  was  absolutely  impossible,  he  was 
drawn  on  like  a  leaf.  (What  he  did  not  say,  of 
course,  was  that  although  he  was  absolutely  untiring 
in  the  sea,  and  as  familiar  with  it  as  a  South  Sea 
islander,  the  weakness  of  his  arms  prevented  his 
being  able  to  swim  fast  or  far,  so  that  he  depended  on, 


24  Portraits  and  Sketches 

frequent  interludes  of  floating.)  At  first  he  fought 
to  get  out  of  the  tide,  and  then,  realising  the  hope- 
lessness of  this,  he  set  himself  to  shout  and  yell,  and 
he  told  me  that  the  sound  of  his  own  voice,  in  that 
stillness  of  racing  water,  struck  him  as  very  strange 
and  dreadful.  Then  he  ceased  to  scream,  and 
floated  as  limply  as  possible,  carried  along,  and 
then  he  was  suddenly  aware  that  in  a  few  minutes  he 
would  be  dead,  for  the  possibility  of  his  being  saved 
did  not  occur  to  him. 

I  asked  him  what  he  thought  about  in  that 
dreadful  contingency,  and  he  replied  that  he  had 
no  experience  of  what  people  often  profess  to 
witness,  the  concentrated  panorama  of  past  life 
hurrying  across  the  memory.  He  did  not  reflect 
on  the  past  at  all.  He  was  filled  with  annoyance 
that  he  had  not  finished  his  "  Songs  before  Sunrise," 
and  then  with  satisfaction  that  so  much  of  it  was 
ready  for  the  press,  and  that  Mazzini  would  be 
pleased  with  him.  And  then  he  continued  :  "  I 
reflected  with  resignation  that  I  was  exactly  the 
same  age  as  Shelley  was  when  he  was  drowned." 
(This,  however,  was  not  the  case ;  Swinburne  had 
reached  that  age  in  March  1867  ;  but  this  was  part  of  a 
curious  delusion  of  Swinburne's  that  he  was  younger 
by  two  or  three  years  than  his  real  age.)  Then, 
when  he  began  to  be,  I  suppose,  a  little  benumbed 
by  the  water,  his  thoughts  fixed  on  the  clothes  he 
had  left  on  the  beach,  and  he  worried  his  clouding 
brain  about  some  unfinished  verses  in  the  pocket  of 
his  coat.  I  suppose  that  he  then  fainted,  for  he 


Swinburne  25 

could  not  recollect  being  reached  by  the  smack  or 
lifted  on  board. 

The  fishermen,  however,  drew  the  poet  success- 
fully out  of  the  water.  Ivy  should  have  grown  up 
the  masts  and  the  sound  of  flutes  have  been  heard 
in  the  forecastle,  as  when  Dionysus  boarded  the 
pirate-vessel  off  Naxos.  Captain  Vallin  was  not 
much  less  astonished  at  his  capture  than  the  Icarians 
were,  for  Swinburne  immediately  displayed  his 
usual  vivacity.  The  Marie-Marthe — for  that  was  the 
name  of  the  boat — proceeded  on  her  voyage  to 
Yport.  The  weather  was  glorious  ;  the  poet's  body 
was  rubbed  by  the  horny  hands  of  his  rescuers,  and 
then  wrapped  in  a  spare  sail,  over  which  his  mane 
of  orange-ruddy  hair  was  spread  to  dry,  like  a  fan. 
He  proceeded  to  preach  to  the  captain  and  his  men, 
who  surrounded  him,  he  told  me,  in  rapturous 
approval,  the  doctrines  of  the  Republic,  and  then  he 
recited  to  them,  "  by  the  hour  together,"  the  poems 
of  Victor  Hugo.  He  was  given  some  food,  and  in 
the  course  of  the  morning  the  Marie-Marthe,  with 
her  singular  lading,  tacked  into  the  harbour  of 
Yport. 

Meanwhile,  Swinburne's  English  friend  and  host, 
who  had  been  near  him  on  the  shore,  but  not  him- 
self bathing,  had,  with  gathering  anxiety,  seen  him 
rapidly  and  unresistingly  hurried  out  to  sea  through 
the  rocky  archway  until  he  passed  entirely  out  of 
sight.  He  immediately  recollected — what  Swin- 
burne had  forgotten — the  treacherous  under-currents 
so  prevalent  and  so  much  dreaded  on  that  dangerous 


26  Portraits  and  Sketches 

coast.  After  Mr.  Powell  had  lost  sight  of  the  poet 
for  what  seemed  to  him  at  least  ten  minutes,  his 
anxiety  was  turned  into  horror,  for  there  were  shouts 
heard  on  the  cliffs  above  him  to  the  effect  that  lt  a 
man  was  drowning."  He  gathered  up  Swinburne's 
clothes  in  his  arms,  and  ran  ankle-deep  in  the 
loose  shingle  to  where  some  boats  were  lying  on  the 
beach.  These  immediately  started  to  the  rescue  ;  in 
but  a  few  minutes  after  their  departure,  however,  a 
boat  arriving  at  Etretat  from  the  east  brought  the 
welcome  news  that  no  catastrophe  had  happened, 
but  that  the  Marie-Marthe  had  been  seen  to  pick 
the  Englishman  up  out  of  the  water,  and  to  continue 
her  course  towards  Yport.  Mr.  Powell,  therefore, 
took  a  carriage  and  galloped  off  at  fullest  speed, 
with  Swinburne's  clothes,  and  arrived  at  Yport  just 
in  time  to  see  the  Marie-Marthe  enter  the  harbour, 
with  Swinburne  in  excellent  spirits  and,  wrapped  in 
a  sail,  gesticulating  on  the  deck. 

What  greatly  astonished  the  Normans  was  that, 
after  so  alarming  an  adventure  and  so  bitter  an 
experience  of  the  treachery  of  the  sea,  Swinburne 
was  by  no  means  willing  to  abandon  it.  The  friends 
dismissed  their  carriage,  and  lunched  at  the  pleasant 
little  inn  between  the  place  and  the  sea  ;  and  having 
found  that  the  Marie-Marthe  was  returning  to  Etretat 
in  the  afternoon,  they  took  a  walk  along  the  cliffs 
until  Captain  Vallin  had  finished  his  business  in 
Yport,  when  they  returned  with  him  by  sea.  This 
conduct  was  thought  eccentric  ;  it  would  have  been 
natural  to  prefer  a  land  journey  at  such  a  moment. 


Swinburne  27 

But,  as  the  captain  approvingly  said,  "  C'eut  etc  trop 
peu  anglais."  Everybody  who  had  helped  in  the 
salvage  was  generously  rewarded,  and  Swinburne 
and  his  friend  were,  for  at  least  twenty-four  hours, 
the  most  popular  of  the  residents  of  Etretat. 

It  is  not  till  now,  at  the  twelfth  hour,  that  Guy 
de  Maupassant  comes  into  the  story.  It  is  only  fair 
to  say  that  he  never  asserted,  nor  acquiesced  in  the 
assertion  made  by  others,  that  he  himself,  on  his  own 
yacht,  rescued  Swinburne.  A  collegian  of  nineteen, 
at  home  for  the  holidays,  a  yacht  was  the  last  thing 
he  was  likely  to  possess.  But  he  jumped  on  board 
one  of  those  fishing-smacks  which  Mr.  Powell  sent 
out,  and  the  boat  he  was  on  turned  back  only  on 
hearing  that  the  Maric-Marthe  had  already  saved  the 
drowning  man.  Who  the  latter  was  Maupassant 
did  not  learn  until  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  when 
he  discovered  that  it  was  the  English  poet  who  had 
arrived,  not  long  before,  to  be  the  guest  of  a  strange 
Englishman,  accomplished  and  extravagant,  who 
occasionally  conversed  with  Maupassant,  as  he  paced 
the  shingle-beach,  and  who  had  already  excited  his 
curiosity.  "  Ce  Monsieur  Powell,"  says  Maupassant, 
"  etonnait  le  pays  par  une  vie  extremement  solitaire 
et  bizarre  aux  yeux  de  bourgeois  et  de  matelots 
peu  accoutumes  aux  fantaisies  et  aux  excentricites 
anglaises."  In  later  years  Maupassant  was  in  the 
habit  of  describing,  and  doubtless  of  amplifying,  for 
the  amusement  of  Parisian  friends,  these  "  English 
eccentricities,"  and  in  particular  he  regaled  Heredia 
and  the  Goncourts  with  them.  Edmond  de 


28  Portraits  and  Sketches 

Goncourt  wrote  a  novel,  once  famous,  which  there 
are  now  none  to  praise  and  very  few  to  read,  called 
"  La  Faustin."  This  work  is  evidently  founded  on 
the  gossip  of  Guy  de  Maupassant ;  but  no  one 
needs  to  waste  his  time  searching  in  it  for  a  portrait 
of  Swinburne,  for  it  is  not  there. 

Maupassant's  obliging  zeal  in  hurrying  to  Swin- 
burne's help  was  rewarded  on  the  following  day  by 
an  invitation  to  lunch  at  the  Chaumiere  de  Dol- 
manc6.  The  two  Englishmen  were  waiting  for 
him  in  a  pretty  garden,  verdurous  and  shady. 
Their  visitor  describes  the  house  as  "  une  toute  basse 
maison  normande  construite  en  silex  et  coiffee  de 
chaume,"  the  very  type  of  building  in  which  the 
tragedies  and  comedies  of  rustic  life  in  the  Seine- 
Inferieure  were  to  figure,  years  later,  in  the  tales  of 
the  juvenile  visitor.  The  eyes  of  that  visitor,  by  the 
way,  if  youthful,  were  exceedingly  sharp  and  bright ; 
although  he  had  not  yet  learned  the  artifice  of  prose 
expression,  the  power  of  observing  and  noting 
character  was  already  highly  developed  in  him. 
His  account  of  the  meeting,  accordingly,  is  a  very 
curious  document,  and  one  which  a  historian  must 
touch  with  care.  As  it  advances,  with  the  desire  to 
astonish  and  scandalise,  it  certainly  borders  on  the 
apocryphal,  and  justifies  Swinburne's  indignation 
towards  the  end  of  his  life.  But  the  opening 
paragraphs  bear  the  impress  of  absolute  truth,  and 
truth  seen  by  the  most  clairvoyant  of  observers. 

This,  then,  is  how  our  poet  struck  the  Norman 
boy  who  had  never  read  a  line  of  his  verses.  "  M. 


Swinburne  29 

Swinburne  was  small  and  thin,  amazingly  thin  at 
first  sight,  a  sort  of  fantastic  apparition.  When 
I  looked  at  him  for  the  first  time,  I  thought  of 
Edgar  Poe.  The  forehead  was  very  large  under 
long  hair,  and  the  face  went  narrowing  down  to  a 
tiny  chin,  shaded  by  a  thin  tuft  of  beard.  A  very 
slight  moustache  slipped  over  lips  which  were 
extraordinarily  delicate  and  were  pressed  together, 
while  what  seemed  an  endless  neck  joined  this 
head/which  was  alive  only  in  its  bright,  penetrating, 
and  fixed  eyes,  to  a  body  without  shoulders,  since 
the  upper  part  of  Swinburne's  chest  seemed 
scarcely  broader  than  his  forehead.  The  whole  of 
this  almost  supernatural  personage  was  stirred  by 
nervous  shudders.  He  was  very  cordial,  very 
easy  of  access  ;  and  the  extraordinary  charm  of  his 
intelligence  bewitched  me  from  the  first  moment." 
There  may  be  a  touch  of  emphasis  in  this,  a  slight 
effect  of  caricature  ;  but  no  one  who  knew 
Swinburne  in  those  days  will  dare  to  deny  the 
general  fidelity  of  the  portrait. 

During  the  course  of  their  life  at  Etretat  the  con- 
versation of  the  friends  continually  turned  on  art, 
on  literature,  even  on  music,  about  which  Powell 
was  then  greatly  exercised.  Swinburne  did  not 
recognise  the  difference  between  one  tune  and 
another,  but  he  took  a  cerebral  interest  in  music. 
The  friends  were  entranced  by  the  fame  of  Wagner 
and  of  Berlioz,  who  was  much  discussed  in  art 
circles  ;  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  either  of  them 
had  heard  any  of  the  compositions  of  these 


30  Portraits  and  Sketches 

musicians  performed  in  public  or  in  private.  It 
was  the  attitude  of  Wagner  which  attracted  and 
delighted  them,  while  Swinburne  had  a  curious 
conviction  of  sympathy  with  Berlioz,  who  died  just 
about  this  time,  leaving  a  mysterious  reputation 
behind  him.  I  have  heard  Swinburne  express  an 
overwhelming  desire  to  be  present  when  "  La 
Damnation  de  Faust "  was  performed,  and  he  was 
prepared,  or  almost  prepared,  to  take  a  journey 
to  Leipzig  for  that  particular  purpose.  He  had  read 
some  of  Berlioz'  musical  criticism,  which  used  to 
appear  (I  think)  in  Le  Figaro,  and  he  exulted  in  the 
French  musician's  eulogies  of  Shakespeare.  The 
"  Memoires  "  of  Berlioz  were  published  later,  but  I 
think  Swinburne  had  read  "  Les  Grotesques  de 
la  Musique."  Rapturous  appreciation  of  music 
which  he  had  never  heard  did  not  preclude,  on 
Mr.  Powell's  part,  enjoyment  of  music  which  he 
shared  with  all  the  world  ;  and  Offenbach,  then 
laden  with  the  laurels  of  "  La  Grande  Duchesse 
de  Gerolstein,"  was  an  honoured  guest  at  the 
Chaumiere  while  Swinburne  was  there. 

But  it  was  literature  and  art  on  which  the  poet 
discoursed  with  the  greatest  glow  and  abundance. 
Maupassant  was  dazzled,  as  well  he  might  be,  by 
the  erudition,  by  the  imagination,  by  the  daring,  by 
what  seemed  to  him  the  perversity  of  the  incredible 
English  genius.  It  is  impossible  not  to  regret  that 
Maupassant  neglected,  on  the  successive  occasions 
when  he  spent  some  hours  with  Swinburne  at 
Etretat,  to  note  down,  as  he  could  have  done,  even 


Swinburne  31 

at  that  early  age,  with  admirable  fidelity,  some  of  the 
meteoric  showers  which  crossed  the  vault  of  that 
high  conversation.  It  is  true  that  some  of  them,  as 
the  Frenchman  merrily  indicates,  would  demand, 
or  would  have  demanded  in  mid-Victorian  times, 
the  gauze  of  Latinity  to  subdue  their  brilliance. 
Maupassant  was  particularly  struck — and  this  is 
very  interesting  as  the  criticism  of  a  Frenchman — 
with  the  Latin  character  of  Swinburne's  mind.  He 
thought  that  the  Roman  imagination  had  no  secrets 
from  him,  and  Swinburne  showed  him  Latin  verses 
of  his  own,  which  Maupassant  considered  "  admir- 
ables  comme  si  1'ame  de  ce  peuple  [the  Roman  race] 
etait  rest£e  en  lui."  Let  us  not  ask  whether  the  boy 
of  eighteen  was  highly  competent  to  judge  of  the 
Latinity  of  these  verses  ;  he  could  at  least  perfectly 
appreciate  the  poet's  compliment. 

As  a  Republican  of  the  innermost  sect  of  Mazzini 
it  was  necessary^that  Swinburne  should  proclaim,  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  his  political  convictions. 
He  did  not  spare  them  to  his  young  friend ;  and  he 
did  not  conceal  his  loathing  for  "the  Accursed,"  as 
he  called  Napoleon  III.,  then  drawing  much  nearer 
to  his  end  than  anybody  guessed.  Maupassant  was 
not  scandalised  by  these  opinions,  but  he  noted  the 
oddity  of  their  being  held  by  one  so  essentially 
an  aristocrat,  so  much  a  noble  to  the  tips  of  his 
fingers,  as  Swinburne  evidently  was.  The  visitor 
turned  the  subject  to  Victor  Hugo,  of  whom 
the  English  poet  spoke,  as  he  always  did,  with 
unbridled  enthusiasm.  As  Swinburne's  flow  of 


32  Portraits  and  Sketches 

unaffected  conversation  became  easier  and  fuller 
the  astonishment  of  Maupassant  increased.  He 
thought  his  English  acquaintance  the  most  exasper- 
atedly  artistic  human  being  whom  he  had  ever  met  ; 
and  in  later  years,  when  he  had  become  acquainted 
with  all  Paris,  he  still  thought  so.  He  was  not 
altogether  in  sympathy  with  Swinburne,  however. 
He  considered  that  in  his  way  of  looking  at 
literature  and  life  there  was  something  macabre ; 
that,  with  all  his  splendour  of  thought,  he  suffered 
from  a  malady  of  spiritual  vision,  and  that  a 
perversity  of  temper  mingled  with  the  magic  of  his 
fancy.  It  would  be  folly  to  deny  that,  in  this  also, 
the  young  visitor  showed  a  rare  clairvoyance. 

At  the  close  of  his  visit  to  France  in  the  summer 
of  1869  Swinburne  devoted  a  month  of  the  time 
otherwise  spent  at  Etretat  to  an  excursion  of  which 
no  account  has  hitherto,  I  think,  been  published. 
It  was  in  some  ways  so  momentous,  from  the 
associations  connected  with  it,  that  it  ought  to  be 
recorded.  Richard  Burton,  with  whom  Swinburne 
had  now  for  some  years  been  intimate,  was 
appointed  British  consul  in  Damascus.  As  he  had 
just  returned  from  Santos  in  rather  poor  health,  he 
was  advised  to  take  a  course  of  the  Vichy  waters 
before  he  proceeded  to  Syria.  He  proposed  that 
Swinburne  should  join  him,  which  the  poet, 
although  greatly  enjoying  the  sea-bathing  at 
Etretat,  instantly  agreed  to  do.  They  met  at 
Boulogne  and  reached  Vichy  on  July  24.  Five 
days  later  the  poet  wrote  "  Vichy  suits  me  splen- 


Swinburne  33 

didly,"  and  indeed  he  was  now  entering  upon  one 
of  the  most  completely  happy  months  of  his  life. 
He  delighted  in  the  breezy  company  of  Burton, 
and  at  Vichy  they  found  two  other  friends, 
Frederick  Leighton  and  Adelaide  Kemble  (Mrs. 
Sartoris),  whose  "  Week  in  a  French  Country- 
house  "  had  recently  revealed  the  existence  of  a 
new  and  exquisite  humorist.  This  quartette  of 
brilliant  compatriots  met  daily,  and  entertained  one 
another  to  the  top  of  their  bent.  Many  years  after- 
wards, when  the  other  three  were  dead,  Swinburne 
celebrated  this  enchanting  month  at  Vichy  in  a 
poem,  called  "  Reminiscence,"  which  he  after- 
wards included  in  the  "  Channel  Passage"  volume 
under  the  title  of  "  An  Evening  at  Vichy."  In  it 
he  describes 

how  bright  the  days  [were]  and  how  sweet  their  chime 
Rang,  shone  and  passed  in  music  that  matched  the  clime 
Wherein  we  met  rejoicing, 

He  analyses  of  what  the  charm  and  what  the 
radiance  consisted,  and  he  gives  the  first  praise  to 

The  loyal  grace,  the  courtesy  bright  as  day, 

The  strong  sweet  radiant  spirit  of  fife  and  light 
That  shone  and  smiled  and  lightened  on  all  men's  sight, 

The  kindly  life  whose  tune  was  the  tune  of  May, 

in  Leighton's  conversation.  Mrs.  Sartoris  was 
accustomed  to  sing  for  the  three  friends,  with  her 
incredible  grace  of  vocalisation,  and  Swinburne 
describes  how 

c 


34  Portraits  and  Sketches 

A  woman's  voice,  divine  as  a  bird's  by  dawn 
Kindled  and  stirred  to  sunward,  arose  and  held 

Our  souls  that  heard,  from  earth  as  from  sleep  withdrawn, 
And  filled  with  light  as  stars,  and  as  stars  compelled 
To  move  by  might  of  music. 

Finally,  Burton's  turn  comes, 

warrior  and  wanderer,  crowned 
With  fame  that  shone  from  eastern  on  western  day, 
More  strong,  more  kind,  than  praise  or  than  grief  might  say. 

It  is  surprising  that  this  very  important  bio- 
graphical poem  has  hitherto  attracted  so  little 
attention  from  those  who  have  written  on  the 
friendships  of  Swinburne.  It  was  written  in  1890. 

While  he  was  thus  enjoying  himself  at  Vichy,  full 
of  quiet  happiness,  he  was  lifted  into  the  seventh 
heaven — "  lit  as  a  mountain  lawn  by  morning,"  in 
his  own  words — through  receiving  a  letter  from 
Victor  Hugo  inviting  him  to  stay  with  him  at 
Hauteville  House  in  Guernsey.  Swinburne  had 
sent  the  Master  an  article'  of  his  on  the  newly- 
published  novel  "  L'Homme  qui  Rit."  Victor  Hugo 
wrote  back  "  such  a  letter !  thanking  me  ex  imo 
corde,  as  he  says  (as  if  he  to  whom  we  all  owe  such 
thanks  could  have  anything  to  thank  any  one  for  !), 
and  ending  up  with  '  Quand  done  me  sera-t-il 
donne  de  vous  voir  ? ' '  Swinburne  immediately 
and  gratefully  replied,  "  In  a  month's  time,  in 
September "  ;  and  on  the  same  occasion  he 
planned  to  spend  "not  more  than  a  week"  in 
Paris,  on  his  way  from  Vichy  to  Guernsey.  He 


Swinburne  35 

made  arrangements  to  meet  in  Paris  Paul  de  Saint- 
Victor,  Theophile  Gautier,  "and  perhaps  Gustave 
Flaubert."  "  Tu  conviendras  que  cela  veut  bien  la 
peine  de  s'arreter  ?  "  he  writes  at  the  close  of  July. 
But  of  all  this  glittering  anticipation,  nothing,  I 
think,  was  realised.  There  was  never  a  meeting  with 
Gautier  and  Flaubert,  and  none  with  Hugo  till 
it  was  too  late  for  happiness.  Why  did  the  bright 
scheme  fall  through  ?  I  do  not  know ;  but  when 
Sir  Richard  Burton  went  eastward  to  Damascus, 
it  seems  certain  that  Swinburne  came  dully  back 
to  Etretat,  and  he  was  in  London  in  October. 
He  possessed  that  winter  an  unpublished  poem, 
"  Les  Enfants  Pauvres,"  which  Hugo  had  given  him. 

He  wrote  little  during  these  summer  holidays  on 
the  Norman  coast.  But  it  may  be  of  interest  to 
record  that  the  magnificent  "  Epilogue"  to  "Songs 
before  Sunrise,"  with  its  description  of  swimming 
at  dawn,  was  composed  at  Etretat.  The  marvellous 
stanzas  recording  the  sensations  of  the  swimmer 
are  a  direct  transcript  of  the  ecstatic  adventures  in 
early  morning  hours  from  the  plage  outside  the 
Porte  d'Amont,  or  off  the  moorings  of  some 
indulgent  and  astonished  fisherman.  The  poet's 
audacity  in  the  waves  was  even  sometimes  alarming, 
as  it  had  been  twelve  years  before,  when,  as  Miss 
Isabel  Swinburne  tells  me,  he  insisted,  in  spite  of  the 
warning  of  the  natives,  upon  plunging  into  the  cold 
and  dangerous  waters  of  the  Lac  de  Gaube,  in  the 
Pyrenees. 

There  remains  only  to  add  that  the  episode  which 


36  Portraits  and  Sketches 

has  been  described  on  a  previous  page,  in  the 
course  of  which  Swinburne  so  nearly  lost  his  life, 
has  left  a  direct  mark  on  his  poetry.  It  inspired 
"  Ex-Voto,"  a  poem  written  at  Etretat,  but  not 
published  until  eight  years  later,  when  it  was 
included  in  "Poems  and  Ballads,  Second  Series." 
I  have  the  poet's  own  authority  for  stating  this,  and 
in  particular  for  drawing  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  following  stanza  (addressed,  of  course,  to  the 
sea)  directly  refers  to  his  being  nearly  drowned  : 

When  thy  salt  lips  well-nigh 
Sucked  in  my  mouth's  last  sigh, 
Grudged  I  so  much  to  die 

This  death  as  others  ? 
Was  it  no  ease  to  think 
The  chalice  from  whose  brink 
Fate  gave  me  death  to  drink 

Was  thine — my  Mother's  ? 

When  the  Franco-German  War  broke  out, 
Swinburne  was  lingering  at  Etretat.  He  almost 
immediately  returned  to  London,  murmuring  on  the 
journey  the  strophes  of  an  ode  which  he  was 
already  composing  to  the  glory  of  a  probable 
French  Republic.  He  never,  I  believe,  visited 
Etretat  again. 


Ill 

The  conversation  of  Swinburne,  in  the  days  of  his 
youth  and  power,  was  very  splendid  in  quality.    No 


Swinburne  37 

part  of  a  great  man  disappears  so  completely  as  his 
table-talk,  and  of  nothing  is  it  more  difficult  after- 
wards to  reconstruct  an  impression.  Swinburne's 
conversation  had,  as  was  to  be  expected,  some  of 
the  characteristics  of  his  poetry.  It  was  rapid,  and 
yet  not  voluble  ;  it  was  measured,  ornate,  and  pic- 
turesque, and  yet  it  was  in  a  sense  homely.  It  was 
much  less  stilted  and  involved  than  his  prose  writing. 
His  extreme  natural  politeness  was  always  apparent 
in  his  talk,  unless,  of  course,  some  unfortunate 
contretemps  should  rouse  a  sudden  ebullition,  when 
he  could  be  neither  just  nor  kind.  But,  as  a  rule, 
his  courtesy  shone  out  of  his  blue-grey  eyes  and  was 
lighted  up  by  the  halo  of  his  cloud  of  orange  hair  as 
he  waved  it,  gravely  or  waggishly,  at  the  company. 
The  ease  with  which  finished  and  polished  sentences 
flowed  from  him  was  a  constant  amazement  to  me 
I  noted  (January  1875)  that  somebody  having  been  so 
unwise  as  to  speak  of  the  "  laborious  "  versification 
of  Catullus,  Swinburne  burst  forth  with  a  trumpet- 
note  of  scorn,  and  said,  "  Well,  I  can  only  tell  you 
I  should  have  called  him  the  least  laborious,  and  the 
most  spontaneous,  in  his  god-like  and  bird-like 
melody,  of  all  the  lyrists  known  to  me  except  Sappho 
and  Shelley ;  I  should  as  soon  call  a  lark's  note 
'laboured'  as  Catullus'.''  This  might  have  been 
said  of  Swinburne's  amazing  talk  ;  it  was  a  stream  of 
song,  no  more  laboured  than  a  lark's. 

Immediately  after  leaving  him  I  used  sometimes, 
as  well  as  I  could,  to  note  down  a  few  of  his 
sentences.  It  was  not  easy  to  retain  much  where 


Portraits  and  Sketches 


all  was  so  copious  and  rich,  but  a  whole  phrase  or 
even  colloquy  would  linger  long  in  the  memory.  I 
think  these  brief  reports  may  be  trusted  to  give  his 
exact  words  :  nothing  could  recall  his  accent  and 
the  spontaneous  crescendo  effect  of  his  enthusiasm. 
I  quote  from  my  note-books  almost  at  random. 
This  is  in  1875,  about  some  literary  antagonist,  but 
I  have  neglected  to  note  whom  : 

"He  had  better  be  careful.  If  I  am  obliged" 
[very  slowly]  "  to  take  the  cudgel  in  my  hand  "  [in 
rapid  exultation]  "the  rafters  of  the  hovel  in  which 
he  skulks  and  sniggers  shall  ring  with  the  loudest 
whacks  ever  administered  in  discipline  or  chastise- 
ment to  a  howling  churl."  All  this  poured  forth,  in 
towering  high  spirits,  without  a  moment's  pause  to 
find  a  word. 

Often  Swinburne  would  put  on  the  ironical  stop, 
and,  with  a  killing  air  of  mock  modesty,  would  say, 
"I  don't  know  whether  you  can  reasonably  expect 
me  to  be  very  much  weaker  than  a  tame  rabbit "  ;  or 
"  Even  milk  would  boil  over  twice  to  be  treated  in 
that  way." 

He  was  certainly,  during  the  years  in  which  I 
knew  him  well,  at  his  best  in  1875.  Many  of  the 
finest  things  which  I  tried  to  capture  belonged 
to  that  year.  Here  is  an  instance  of  his  proud 
humility  : 

"  It  is  always  a  thorn  in  my  flesh,  and  a  check  to 
any  satisfaction  which  I  might  feel  in  writing  prose, 
to  reflect  that  probably  I  have  never  written,  nor 
shall  ever  write,  one  single  page  that  Landor  would 


Swinburne  39 

have  deigned  to  sign.  Nothing  of  this  sort,  or  indeed 
of  any  sort  whatever,  troubles  me  for  a  moment  when 
writing  verse,  but  this  always  does  haunt  me  when 
I  am  at  work  on  prose." 

Before  1875  he  had  become  considerably  severed 
from  Rossetti  in  sympathy,  and  he  was  prepared  to 
discuss  without  anger  the  possibility  that  his  praise 
had  been  over-luscious  : 

"Well,  very  likely  I  did  say  some  extravagant 
things  about  Rossetti's  original  sonnets  and  lyrics, 
but  I  do  deliberately  stick  to  any  word  I  said  about 
him  as  a  translator.  No  doubt  Shelley  is  to  the  full 
as  beautiful  a  workman  in  that  line,  but  then  he  is 
as  inaccurate  as  Rossetti  is  accurate." 

All  through  this  year,  1875,  his  mind  was  full  of 
the  idea  of  translating  ^schylus,  Aristophanes, 
Villon,  all  his  peculiar  foreign  favourites,  and  the 
subject  was  frequently  uppermost  in  his  mouth. 
He  thought  Mallarme's  version  of  Poe  "very 
exquisite,"  although  he  could  not  make  much 
of  Manet's  amazing  tolio  illustrations.'  Swinburne 
was  well  disposed,  however,  to  Manet,  whose  studio 
in  Paris  he  told  me  he  had  visited  in  1863,  in  com- 
pany with  Whistler  and  Fantin.  He  was  much 
disappointed  at  the  sudden  death  of  Maggi,  of  Milan 
who  had  undertaken  to  bring  out  a  complete  Italian 
translation  of  his  poems.  Swinburne  used  to  speak 
of  Italy  as  "  my  second  mother-country "  and  "  my 
country  by  adoption,"  although  I  think  his  only 
personal  knowledge  of  it  had  been  gained  in  1863, 
when  he  spent  a  long  time  in  and  near  Florence, 


40  Portraits  and  Sketches 

much  of  the  time  in  the  society  of  Walter  Savage 
Landor  and  that "  dear,  brilliant,  ingenious  creature," 
Mrs.  Gaskell.  It  was  in  a  garden  at  Fiesole,  he  told 
me,  that  he  wrote  "  Itylus,"  with  the  whole  air 
vociferous  with  nightingales  around  him. 

In  the  summer  of  1875  I  brought  him  a  very 
laudatory  review  of  his  writings  which  had  just 
appeared  in  Copenhagen,  and  urged  him  to  gratify 
the  Danish  critic  by  sending  him  a  few  written  words 
of  acknowledgment.  This  he  was  very  well  pleased 
to  do,  but  he  paused,  with  lifted  pen,  and  looking 
up  sideways  with  that  curious  roguish  smile  which 
was  one  of  his  charms,  he  asked,  "  But  what  in  the 
name  of  all  the  gods  and  little  fishes  of  Scandinavia 
am  I  to  say  ?  t  know  1  I  must  borrow  some  of  the 
divine  daring  which  enables  our  Master  to  respond 
so  frankly  to  tributes  of  which  he  cannot  read  a 
word  !  I  will  write  to  your  Danish  friend  exactly  as 
Victor  Hugo  replies  to  such  tributes  of  English  verse 
and  prose  1" 

The  first  letter,  he  told  me,  which  he  received 
from  Victor  Hugo,  of  whom  he  always  spoke  in 
terms  of  idolatrous  reverence,  was  dated  in  the  early 
part  of  1862,  in  acknowledgment  of  some  unsigned 
articles  on  "  Les  Mis£rables."  In  replying,  with  the 
greatest  effusion,  Swinburne  asked  leave  to  lay  the 
dedication  of  "  Chastelard  "  at  Hugo's  feet.  Although 
the  English  poet  always  spoke  of  the  French  poet  as 
a  daughter  might  speak  of  her  mother,  with  tender 
adoration,  they  did  not  meet  until  November  1882, 
when  Swinburne  went  over  to  Paris  on  purpose  to 


Swinburne  41 

attend  the  revival — "the  resurrection,"  he  called  it 
— of  "  Le  Roi  s'amuse."  He  had  no  familiarity  with 
Paris  ;  he  stayed,  like  a  true  British  tourist,  in  one 
of  the  fashionable  hotels  in  the  Rue  St.  Honore. 
On  that  occasion,  and  I  think  for  the  only  time  in 
his  life,  he  pressed  the  hand  of  Victor  Hugo.  He 
wrote  to  me  from  Paris  of  the  play,  and  of  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  its  appearance,  "a  thing  as  unique 
and  wonderful  as  the  play  itself,"  but  said  not  a  word 
of  his  impressions  of  Hugo. 

To  some  one  who  remarked  that  it  was  disagree- 
able to  be  controverted,  Swinburne  replied  gravely, 
"  No  !  not  at  all  !  It  gives  a  zest  to  the  expression 
of  sympathy  to  raise  some  points  of  amicable  dis- 
agreement." This  was  not  the  only  case  in  which 
I  was  struck  by  a  certain  unconscious  resemblance 
between  his  repartees  and  those  of  Dr.  Johnson. 

Early  in  life  he  started  his  theory  of  the  division 
of  great  writers  into  gods  and  giants.  He  worked 
it  out  rather  whimsically  ;  Shakespeare,  of  course, 
was  a  god,  and  Ben  Jonson  was  a  'giant,  but  I 
think  that  Webster  was  a  god.  These  conjectures 
led  him  along  the  pleasant  pathway  of  caprice. 
He  now  started  his  serious  study  of  Shakespeare, 
of  which,  as  about  to  become  a  book,  I  believe  he 
first  spoke  to  me  late  in  1873.  It  was  a  time  of  con- 
troversy so  acrid  that  we  can  hardly  realise  the 
bitterness  of  it  in  these  calm  days.  But  Swinburne 
was  more  than  ready  for  the  fight.  He  rejoiced  in 
his  power  to  make  his  assailants  ridiculous.  "  I 
need  hardly  tell  you,"  he  said  to  me,  "  that  I  shall 


42  Portraits  and  Sketches 

begin,  and  clear  my  way,  with  a  massacre  of  the 
pedants  worthy  of  one  of  Topsy's  [William  Morris's] 
Icelandic  sagas.  It  shall  be  '  a  murder  grim  and 
great,'  I  pledge  myself  to  you  ! "  And  indeed  he 
was  very  vivacious  at  the  expense  of  the  New  Shak- 
spere  (or  "  Shack-spur,"  as  he  always  pronounced  it) 
Society. 

Great  anger  burnecj  in  his  bosom  because  the 
Athenaum  described  his  "  Erechtheus  "  as  "  a  transla- 
tion from  Euripides."  I  never  clearly  understood 
the  reason  of  Swinburne's  fanatical  objection  to 
Euripides,  which  has  even  puzzled  Dr.  Verrall.  He 
must  have  adopted  it,  I  think,  from  Jowett.  On  the 
occasion  of  the  appearance  of  the  review  quoted 
above,  I  found  Swinburne  in  a  fine  fit  of  the  tantrums. 
He  poured  out  his  indignation  the  moment  I  came 
into  the  room.  "  Translation  from  Euripides,  indeed ! 
Why,  a  fourth-form  boy  could  perceive  that,  as  far  as 
"  Erechtheus  "  can  be  said  to  be  formed  after  any- 
body it  is  modelled  throughout  on  the  earlier  style  of 
^schylus,  the  simple  three-parts-epic  style  of  '  The 
Suppliants,'  '  The  Persians,'  and  the  '  Seven  against 
Thebes/  the  style  most  radically  contrary  to  the 
'  droppings/  grrh  !  the  droppings  (as  our  divine  and 
dearest  Mrs.  Browning  so  aptly  rather  than  delicately 
puts  it)  of  the  scenic  sophist  that  can  be  conceived. 
I  should  very  much  like  to  see  the  play  of  Euripides 
which  contains  five  hundred  consecutive  lines  that 
could  be  set  against  as  many  of  mine  1 " 

Again,  on  a  later  occasion,  "  I  always  have  main- 
tained, and  I  always  shall  maintain,  that  it  is  infi- 


Swinburne  43 

nitely  easier  to  overtop  Euripides  by  the  head  and 
shoulders  than  to  come  up  to  the  waist  of  Sophocles 
or  stretch  up  to  touch  the  lance  of  ^Eschylus." 
"  Erechtheus"  was  written  with  unusual  celerity,  all 
of  it,  if  I  remember  right,  in  lodgings  by  the  sea  at 
Wragford,  near  Southwold,  in  Suffolk,  where  Swin- 
burne was  staying  in  the  autumn  of  1875.  When 
we  think  of  the  learning,  the  weight  of  imagination, 
and  the  unrivalled  metrical  daring  of  that  splendid 
drama  (to  my  mind  on  the  very  highest  level  of 
Swinburne's  poetical  achievement),  this  improvisa- 
tion seems  marvellous. 

To  one  who  praised  in  his  presence  the  two  great 
naval  odes  of  Campbell  :  "  I  like  to  hear  you  say 
that.  But  I  should  speak  still  more  passionately, 
for  the  simple  fact  is  that  I  know  nothing  like  them 
at  all,  simile  aut  secundum,  in  their  own  line,  which 
is  one  of  the  very  highest  lines  in  the  highest  range 
of  poetry.  Very  little  national  verse  anywhere  is 
good  either  patriotically  or  poetically  ;  and  what  is 
good  patriotically  is  far  inferior  to  Campbell 
poetically.  Look  at  Burns  and  Rouget  de  1'Isle  ! 
What  is  virtually  lacking  is  proof,  in  the  face  of  the 
Philistines,  that  poetry  has  real  worth  and  weight  in 
national  matters — lacking  everywhere  else,  only — 
not  lacking  in  Campbell." 

His  feeling  about  literature  was  serious  to  the 
verge  of  fanaticism.  It  absorbed  him  like  a 
religion,  and  it  was  this  unflagging  sense  of  the 
superhuman  power  and  value  of  poetry  which  made 
his  conversation  so  stimulating,  especially  to  a  very 


44  Portraits  and  Sketches 

young  man  whom  he  honoured  with  the  untram- 
melled expression  of  his  opinions.  But  he  had 
a  charming  delicacy  of  toleration  for  the  feelings  of 
those  whom  he  respected,  even  when  he  believed 
them  to  be  tainted  with  error.  Of  an  elder  writer 
of  some  authority,  to  whom  he  was  urged  to  reply 
on  a  point  of  criticism,  he  said,  "No  !  If  I  wrote 
about  what  he  has  said,  I  could  not  hold  myself  in. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  rude  to  .     Now,  I  know 

that  I  should  begin  by  trying  to  behave  like  a  good 
boy,  and  before  I  knew  what  I  was  doing  I  should 

be  smiting  hip  and  thigh,  and  making  him 

as  the  princes  were  who  perished  at  Endor.  I  hope 
you  remember  what  they  became  ?  Look  it  up,  and 
you  will  find  what  becomes  of  poeticules  when  they 
decompose  into  criticasters !  So,  you  see,  I  had 
better  leave  him  alone." 

Swinburne's  pleasure  in  fighting  was  a  very 
marked  and  a  very  amusing  trait  in  his  conversa- 
tion. He  liked,  at  brief  intervals,  to  have  something 
to  worry  between  the  teeth  of  his  discourse.  He 
would  allow  himself  to  be  drawn  off  the  scent 
by  any  red  herring  of  criticism.  This  mock 
irascibility,  as  of  a  miniature  Boythorn,  always 
struck  me  as  having  been  deliberately  modelled  on 
the  behaviour  of  Walter  Savage  Landor.  This  im- 
pression was  confirmed  in  rather  a  startling  way  by 
a  phrase  of  Swinburne's  own.  He  had  been 
reading  to  me  the  MS.  of  his  "George  Chapman," 
and  after  the  reading  was  over,  and  we  had  passed 
to  other  things,  Swinburne  said,  "  Did  you  notice 


Swinburne  45 

just  now  some  pages  of  rather  Landorian  character? 
Don't  you  think  I  was  rather  like  the  old  lion,  when 
he  was  using  his  teeth  and  claws,  in  my  rending  of 
the  stage  licensers  and  our  crazy  English  censorial 
system  ?  " 

IV 

The  intellectual  temperament  of  Swinburne  is 
not  to  be  apprehended  unless  we  remember  that  he 
was  in  grain  an  aristocrat.  On  the  father's  side  he 
was  directly  descended  from  a  feudal  Border 
family,  which,  as  long  ago  as  the  reign  of 
Edward  II.,  had  produced  a  man  of  mark  in  Sir 
Adam  de  Swinburne.  The  poet  never  forgot  the 
ancestral  castle  of  Swinburne,  which  had  passed 
from  his  forbears  two  centuries  ago,  never  the 
fierce  feuds  and  rattling  skirmishes  under  the  hard 
Northumbrian  sky.  He  talked  with  freedom  and 
with  manifest  pleasure  of  these  vague  mediaeval 
forefathers,  of  their  bargaining  and  fighting  with 
the  Umfrevilles  and  the  Fenwicks ;  -  of  the  un- 
speakable charm  of  their  fastness  at  Capheaton, 
where  so  much  of  his  own  childhood  was  passed. 
But  his  interest  in  the  Swinburnes  seemed  to  be 
largely  romantic  and  antiquarian.  His  connections 
on  his  mother's  side  were  not  less  distinguished,  nor 
were  they  less  ancient,  although  the  Ashburnhams 
were  ennobled  by  William  III.,  and  their  immediate 
founder  had  been  a  loyal  groom  of  the  bedchamber 
to  Charles  I.  The  poet's  interest  in  their  history, 
however,  began  at  the  point  where  Lady  Jane 


46  Portraits  and  Sketches 

Ashburnham  married  Admiral  Charles  Swinburne 
in  1836,  Algernon  being  born  next  year  as  their 
eldest  son.  He  was  not  indisposed,  however,  in 
unemphatic  retrospect,  to  recall  the  great  houses  of 
Ormonde,  Anglesey,  and  Northumberland  with 
which  the  blood  of  his  mother  brought  him  into 
direct  connection.  Probably  a  reminiscence  of  all 
this  may  occasionally  be  found  to  throw  light  on 
some  otherwise  cryptic  lines  in  his  poetry. 

Of  all  his  relatives,  however,  he  spoke  in  those 
days  most  of  two  :  his  incomparable  mother, 
invincible  in  tenderness  and  anxious  care,  and  his 
somewhat  formidable  uncle,  the  fourth  Earl.  This 
nobleman  was  a  book-collector  of  the  fearless  old 
fashion,  who  had  formed,  at  a  reckless  cost,  one  of 
the  noblest  libraries  in  England.  Lord  Ashburn- 
ham did  not  welcome  visitors  to  his  bookshelves, 
but  he  made  a  special,  perhaps  a  unique,  exception 
in  favour  of  his  nephew.  Some  of  Swinburne's 
happiest  days  were  spent  among  the  almost 
fabulous  treasures  of  the  great  house  near  Battle, 
and  he  would  return  to  London  with  dazzled  eyes, 
babbling  of  illuminated  breviaries  and  old  MS. 
romances  in  Burgundian  French.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Lord  Ashburnham  was  one  of  the  very 
few  persons,  if  he  was  not  the  only  one,  of  whom 
his  nephew  stood  in  awe.  If  the  poet  was  fractious, 
the  peer  could  be  tumultuous,  and  I  have  been  told 
that  nowhere  was  Algernon  so  primly  on  his  "  p's 
and  q's "  as  at  Ashburnham.  But  a  real  affec- 
tionate appreciation  existed  between  the  old  biblio- 


Swinburne  47 

phile  and  the  glowing  young  poet.  When  Lord  Ash- 
burnham  died,  over  eighty,  in  1 878,  it  was  with  sorrow 
as  well  as  respect  that  his  nephew  mourned  him. 

Outside  poetry,  and,  in  lesser  measure,  his  family 
life,  Swinburne's  interests  were  curiously  limited. 
He  had  no  "  small  talk,"  and  during  the  discussion 
of  the  common  topics  of  the  day  his  attention  at 
once  flagged  and  fell  off,  the  glazed  eye  betraying 
that  the  mind  was  far  away.  For  science  he  had 
no  taste  whatever,  and  his  lack  of  musical  ear 
was  a  byword  among  his  acquaintances.  I  once 
witnessed  a  practical  joke  played  upon  him,  which 
made  me  indignant  at  the  time,  but  which  now  seems 
innocent  enough,  and  not  without  interest.  A  lady, 
having  taken  the  rest  of  the  company  into  her  con- 
fidence, told  Swinburne  that  she  would  render  on  the 
piano  a  very  ancient  Florentine  ritornello  which  had 
just  been  discovered.  She  then  played  "  Three  Blind 
Mice,"  and  Swinburne  was  enchanted.  He  found 
that  it  reflected  to  perfection  the  cruel  beauty  of  the 
Medicis — which  perhaps  it  does.  But  this  exemplifies 
the  fact  that  all  impressions  with  him  were  intel- 
lectual, and  that  an  appeal  to  his  imagination  would 
gild  the  most  common  object  with  romance. 

In  the  days  I  speak  of,  Swinburne  lived  in  large, 
rather  empty  rooms  on  the  first  floor  of  an  old 
house  in  Great  James  Street,  which  used  to  remind 
me  of  one  of  Dickens's  London  houses  in  "Great 
Expectations"  or  "Little  Dorrit."  But  until  the 
death  of  his  father,  who  died  at  a  great  age  in  the  early 
autumn  of  1877,  Swinburne  always  had  a  country 


48  Portraits  and  Sketches 

home  in  Holmwood,  near  Henley-on-Thames.  At 
Admiral  Swinburne's  death  I  think  he  stayed  on 
with  his  mother  at  Holmwood  till  the  end  of  that 
year.  Such  months  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames 
were  always  beneficial  to  his  health,  and  he  wrote 
there  without  interruption.  I  find  a  note  (1875)  : 
"  How  exuberant  S.  always  is  when  he  comes 
back ;  it  is  partly  pleasure  at  being  in  London 
again,  and  partly  refreshment  from  his  country 
captivity."  Of  his  visits  to  the  sea-coast  of  Norfolk 
and  Suffolk  others  must  speak,  for  I  never  had  the 
pleasure  of  accompanying  him. 

When  he  came  back  from  the  country  to  town 
he  was  always  particularly  anxious  to  recite  or  read 
aloud  his  own  poems.  In  doing  this  he  often  be- 
came very  much  excited,  and  even,  in  his  over- 
whelming sense  of  the  movement  of  the  metre, 
would  jump  about  the  room  in  a  manner  some- 
what embarrassing  to  the  listener.  His  method  of 
procedure  was  uniform.  He  would  arrive  at  a 
friend's  house  with  a  breast-pocket  obviously  bulg- 
ing with  manuscript,  but  buttoned  across  his  chest. 
After  floating  about  the  room  and  greeting  his  host 
and  hostess  with  many  little  becks  of  the  head,  and 
affectionate  smiles,  and  light  wavings  of  the  fingers, 
he  would  settle  at  last  upright  on  a  chair,  or,  by 
preference,  on  a  sofa,  and  sit  there  in  a  state  of 
rigid  immobility,  the  toe  of  one  foot  pressed  against 
the  heel  of  the  other.  Then  he  would  say,  in  an 
airy,  detached  way,  as  though  speaking  of  some 
absent  person,  "  I  have  brought  with  me  my 


Swinburne  49 

'  Thalassius '  or  my  '  Wasted  Garden '  (or  whatever 
it  might  happen  to  be),  which  I  have  just  finished." 
Then  he  would  be  folded  again  in  silence,  looking 
at  nothing.  We  then  were  to  say,  "  Oh,  do  please 
read  it  to  us  !  Will  you  ?"  Swinburne  would 
promptly  reply,  "  I  had  no  intention  in  the  world 

of  boring  you  with  it,  but  since  you  ask  me "  and 

out  would  come  the  MS.  I  do  not  remember  that 
there  was  ever  any  variation  in  this  little  ceremony, 
which  sometimes  preluded  many  hours  of  recitation 
and  reading.  His  delivery,  especially  of  his  own 
poetry,  was  delightful  as  long  as  he  sat  quietly  in  his 
seat.  His  voice,  which  was  of  extraordinary  beauty, 
"  the  pure  Ashburnham  voice,"  as  his  cousin  explains 
to  me,  rose  and  fell  monotonously,  but  with  a  flute- 
like  note  which  was  very  agreeable,  and  the  pulse  of 
the  rhythm  was  strongly  yet  delicately  felt.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  successive  evenings  on  which  he 
read  "Both well"  aloud  in  his  lodgings,  in  parti- 
cular one  on  which  Edward  Burne-Jones,  Arthur 
O'Shaughnessy,  P.  B.  Marston,  and  I  sat  with  him 
at  his  round  marble-topped  table — lighted  only  by 
candles  in  two  giant  candlesticks  of  serpentine  he 
had  brought  from  the  Lizard — and  heard  him  read 
the  magnificent  second  act  of  that  tragedy.  He 
surpassed  himself  in  vigour  and  melody  of  utter- 
ance that  night.  But  sometimes,  in  reading,  he 
lost  control  of  his  emotions,  the  sound  became  a 
scream,  and  he  would  dance  about  the  room,  the 
paper  fluttering  from  his  finger-tips  like  a  pennon 
in  a  gale  of  wind. 

D 


50  Portraits  and  Sketches 

He  was  not,  in  my  recollection,  very  ready  to 
recite  old  published  poems  of  his  own,  though 
always  glad,  and  even  imperiously  anxious,  to  read 
new  ones.  Almost  the  only  exception  which  I  re- 
member was  in  favour  of  "  The  Triumph  of  Time," 
a  poem  which  Swinburne  deliberately  impressed 
upon  me,  and  doubtless  upon  other  friends  as  well, 
as  being,  in  a  very  peculiar  sense,  a  record  of  per- 
sonal experience.  It  was  always  difficult  to  know 
where  the  frontier  ran  between  hard  fact  and  Swin- 
burne's mind  illuminated  by  a  sweeping  limelight 
of  imagination.  He  had  a  real  love  of  truth,  but 
no  certain  recognition  of  fact.  Unless,  however, 
he  curiously  deceived  himself,  a  set  of  very  definite 
emotions  and  events  is  embalmed  in  "  The  Triumph 
of  Time,"  of  which  I  have  more  than  once  heard 
him  chant  fragments  with  extraordinary  poignancy. 
On  these  occasions  his  voice  took  on  strange  and 
fife-like  notes,  extremely  moving  and  disconcerting, 
since  he  was  visibly  moved  himself.  The  sound  of 
Swinburne  wailing  forth  in  his  thrilling  semitones 
such  stanzas  as  that  addressed  to  the  Sea  : 

/  shall  sleep,  and  move  with  the  moving  ships, 
Change  as  the  winds  change,  veer  in  the  tide  ; 

My  lips  will  feast  on  the  foam  of  thy  lips, 

I  shall  rise  with  thy  rising,  with  thee  subside  ; 

Sleep,  and  not  know  if  she  be,  if  she  were, 

Filled  full  with  life  to  the  eyes  and  hair, 

At  a  rose  is  fulfilled  to  the  rose  leaf  tips 

With  splendid  summer  and  perfume  and  pride, 


Swinburne  51 

is  something  which  will  not  fade  out  of  memory  a 
long  as  life  lasts  ;  and,  perhaps,  most  of  all,  in  the 
recitation  of  the  last  four  of  the  following  very 
wonderful  verses: 

/  shall  go  my  ways,  tread  out  my  measure, 

Fill  the  days  of  my  daily  breath 
With  fugitive  things  not  good  to  treasure, 

Do  as  the  world  doth,  say  as  it  saith  ; 
But  if  we  had  loved  each  other — O  sweet, 
Had  you  felt,  lying  under  the  palms  of  your  feet, 
The  heart  of  my  heart,  beating  harder  with  pleasure 

To  feel  you  tread  it  to  dust  and  death, 

Swinburne  seemed  to  achieve,  or  to  go  far  towards 
achieving,  an  entirely  novel  and  original  form  of 
expression.  His  whole  body  shook  with  passion, 
his  head  hung  on  one  side  with  the  eyes  uplifted, 
his  tongue  seemed  burdened  by  the  weight  of  the 
syllables,  and  in  the  concentrated  emphasis  of  his 
slow  utterance  he  achieved  something  like  the  real 
Delphic  ecstasy,  the  transfiguration  of  .the  Pythia 
quivering  on  her  tripod.  It  was  surpassingly  strange, 
but  it  was  without  a  touch  of  conscious  oddity  or 
affectation.  It  was  a  case  of  poetic  "  possession," 
pure  and  simple. 

V 

Swinburne  was  a  prodigious  worker,  and  the  bulk  of 
his  productions  in  prose  and  verse  is  the  more  surpris- 
ing since  the  act  of  writing  was  extremely  disagreeable 
to  him,  as,  we  may  remember,  it  was  to  Wordsworth. 


52  Portraits  and  Sketches 

He  should  have  been  born  an  improvisatore.  I 
brought  him  once  a  picture  of  the  Swedish  poet  Bell- 
mann,  whose  genius  (a  hundred  years  earlier)  had  a 
certain  resemblance  to  his  own.  Bellmann  was  repre- 
sented with  a  lute,  improvising  his  verses  in  the  open 
air.  u  Ah  !  "  said  Swinburne,  "  that  is  what  I  should 
like  to  do  !  I  should  like  to  stand  on  a  promontory 
in  Sark,  in  the  full  blaze  of  the  sun,  and  shout  my 
verses  till  all  the  gulls  come  fawning  to  my  feet. 
That  would  be  better  than  scraping  and  spluttering 
over  a  filthy  pen."  In  spite  of  a  real  physical 
difficulty  in  writing,  however,  Swinburne  got  through 
an  astonishing  amount.  In  the  autumn  of  1874,  for 
instance,  I  find  he  was  finishing  "  Bothwell "  ;  he 
was  preparing  a  volume  of  essays  for  the  press  ;  he 
was  composing  lyrics  for  a  volume  to  be  called 
"  Songs  in  Time  of  Change,"  and  then  "  Poems  of 
Revolution  "  (ultimately,  I  suppose,  "  Songs  of  Two 
Nations");  he  was  writing  criticism  of  Poe  and 
Blake  (which  did  not,  I  think,  please  him  enough  to 
be  printed) ;  he  was  busy  with  a  book  about 
Chapman  ;  and  he  was  engaged  on  a  revival  of 
Wells's  "  Joseph  and  His  Brethren."  In  connection 
with  the  last-mentioned,  I  remember  his  showing  me 
the  recast  he  was  making  of  an  essay  on  Wells  he 
had  written  in  1861,  and  he  said,  "At  all  events,  I 
can  write  better  prose  now  than  I  could  then." 

The  habit  of  centenaries  had  not  seized  the 
British  public  forty  years  ago.  The  anniversary  of 
Lander's  birth  passed  quite  unobserved,  and  even 
Swinburne  did  not  recollect  the  date  till  the  day 


Swinburne  53 

itself,  when  he  was  at  Holmwood,  and  could  do 
nothing.  He  was  extremely  vexed  ;  oddly  enough, 
he  had  always  believed  Landor  to  be  two  or  three 
years  older  than  he  was,  and  he  had  taken  for 
granted  that  the  centenary  had  passed.  However, 
it  providentially  transpired  that  Charles  Lamb  was 
born  only  eleven  days  later  than  Landor,  so  on 
February  i,  1875,  Swinburne  came  up  to  town, 
with  delightful  fussiness,  on  purpose  to  organise  a 
Lamb  dinner.  So  far  as  I  know,  it  was  the  only  time  in 
his  life  that  he  ever  "  organised  "  anything.  He  was 
magnificent ;  very  grave  and  important ;  and  he 
smoothed  over  the  awkward  circumstance  of  his 
having  forgotten  (for  the  moment)  his  own  beloved 
Landor  by  saying  that  the  same  libations  might  fitly 
and  gracefully  be  mingled  in  an  affectionate  remem- 
brance of  the  two  great  men. 

Landor,  however,  was  ultimately  merged  in  Lamb, 
in  whose  honour  a  very  small  group  ate  a  mediocre 
dinner  in  a  Soho  tavern  on  February  10.  We 
were  only  five,  if  I  recollect  rightly,  the  others 
being  Mr.  Theodore  Watts,  our  ardent  and  sanguine 
William  Minto  (whose  bright  life  burned  out  untimely 
some  nineteen  years  ago),  and  a  curious  friend  of 
Swinburne's,  Thomas  Purnell,  always  to  me  rather  a 
disturbing  element.  Swinburne  was  in  the  chair,  and 
I  never  saw  him  in  better  "  form."  He  took  upon 
himself  an  air  of  dignity  which  presupposed  the 
idea  that  our  little  banquet  was,  symbolically,  a 
large  public  affair  ;  and  when  Purnell  "  went  too 
far,"  as  people  say,  it  was  wonderful  to  hear 


54  Portraits  and  Sketches 

Swinburne  recall  him  to  a  more  decorous  choice  of 
language.  I  feel  as  if  there  had  been  "  speeches  "  ; 
but  that  is  merely  caused  by  a  recollection  of  the 
very  high  grade  along  which  the  conversation  moved 
until  the  waiters  turned  us  out  into  the  street. 

Of  the  relations  between  Swinburne  and  Brown- 
ing something  should,  I  believe,  be  put  on  record. 
In  the  earliest  times  the  former  had  shared  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  enthusiasm  for  what  Browning  had 
published  up  to  "  Men  and  Women."  But  the  two 
poets  came  into  no  close  contact,  and  I  think  that 
Swinburne's  natural  instinct  was  not  attracted  to 
Browning's  personality.  When,  in  1874,  I  began 
eagerly  to  talk  of  the  elder  to  the  younger  poet,  my 
zeal  was  checked  by  Swinburne's  courteous  indiffer- 
ence. He  found  no  pleasure  whatever  in  Browning's 
plays,  nor  much,  which  astonished  me,  in  his  lyrics. 
Yet  there  was  no  aversion,  and  when  we  came  to 
"  The  Ring  and  the  Book  "  Swinburne's  praise  was 
unaffected.  Moreover,  he  more  and  more  warmly 
admired  the  series  of  psychological  studies  beginning 
with  "  Fifine  at  the  Fair."  "  This,"  he  said,  "  is  far 
better  than  anything  Browning  has  yet  written. 
Here  is  his  true  province."  The  result  of  this  deve- 
lopment of  taste  was  the  page  of  almost  extravagant 
laudation  in  the  "  George  Chapman  "  of  1875,  which 
amazed  some  of  Swinburne's  friends,  and  bewildered 
Browning  himself  as  much  as  it  gratified  him.  But, 
unfortunately,  in  1877,  at  the  height  of  Swin- 
burne's violent  controversy  with  the  New  Shakspere 
Society,  Browning  accepted  the  presidency  of  that 


Swinburne  55 

body.  This  gave  Swinburne  not  merely  deep 
offence,  but  great  and  lasting  pain,  and  no  invectives 
became  too  sharp  for  him  in  speaking  of  Browning. 
It  distressed  me  beyond  measure  that  such  a  mis- 
understanding should  exist  between  men  whom  I 
loved  and  venerated,  and  I  ventured  to  tell  Brown- 
ing how  much  Swinburne  was  hurt.  He  was,  of 
course,  entirely  innocent  of  all  intentional  offence, 
expressed  himself  shocked,  and  begged  me  to  explain 
to  Swinburne  how  little  any  intention  of  slighting 
him  had  crossed  his  mind.  At  the  same  time,  for  my 
private  ear,  Browning  suggested  that  one's  conduct 
really  could  not  be  regulated  by  the  dread  lest  some 
eminent  person  one  scarcely  knew  might  disapprove 
of  it.  I  did  what  I  could,  not  without  some  success, 
to  moderate  Swinburne's  anger,  but  the  damage  was 
done.  There  was  a  native  incompatibility  between 
the  two  poets  which  prevented  either  of  them  from 
according  complete  justice  to  the  other.  The 
character  of  Browning  had  the  breadth  of  a  lake, 
which  is  sometimes  swept  by  storms  ;  that  of  Swin- 
burne, the  unceasing  impetuosity  of  a  mountain 
torrent. 

Before  his  fortieth  year  there  had  set  in  a  curious 
ossification  of  Swinburne's  intellect.  He  ceased  to 
form  new  impressions,  while  reverting  with  all  his 
former  exuberance  to  the  old.  This  was  extraordi- 
nary in  one  who  had  waved  the  banner  of  rebellion 
and  had  led  youthful  enthusiasm  so  heroically  when 
it  affected  writers  just  earlier  than  himself.  Whether 
he  changed  his  tone  in  familiar  talk  later  on  I  do  not 


56  Portraits  and  Sketches 

know,  but  certainly  between  i874and  i884heshowed 
no  intelligent  comprehension  whatever  of  the  new 
elements  in  literature.  He  was  absolutely  indifferent 
to  Stevenson,  to  Ibsen,  to  Dostoieffsky,  each  of 
whom  was  pressed  upon  his  notice,  and  his  hostility 
to  Zola  was  grotesque.  In  1877  "  L'Assommoir  " 
was  published  periodically  in  a  Paris  review  called, 
I  think,  La  Republique  des  Lettres,  a  journal  which 
had  languished  from  the  first,  and  now  expired  in  its 
third  volume.  Swinburne  attributed,  of  course 
jocosely,  the  fact  of  its  failure  to  the  effect  of  a  most 
dignified  protest  against  Zola  which  he  had  printed 
somewhere.  I  remember  his  ecstasy,  and  his  ex- 
pression of  a  belief  (which  proved  quite  unfounded) 
that  Zola  would  never  dare  to  publish  another  page. 
This  attitude  to  the  French  Naturalists  was 
unusual.  Swinburne's  native  temper  was  generous, 
and  the  idea  of  attacking  a  genuine  talent  of  any 
species  would  have  been  dreadful  to  him.  But  he 
did  not  think  that  Stevenson — to  take  a  particularly 
distressing  instance — had  any  talent,  and  he  was 
therefore  silent  about  what  he  wrote.  It  was  curious, 
however,  to  note  that  Swinburne  was  always  capable 
of  being  affected  along  straight  lines  of  reminiscence. 
At  the  very  moment  when  he  was  hewing  at  the 
French  realists,  root  and  branch,  he  spoke  to  me  with 
generous  approval  of  one  of  the  least  gifted  and  most 
extreme  of  their  precursors,  L6on  Cladel.  I  was 
greatly  astonished,  but  the  mystery  was  soon  ex- 
plained. Cladel  had  attacked  Napoleon  III.  with 
peculiar  virulence,  and  he  was  an  open  worshipper  at 


Swinburne  57 

the  altar  of  Victor  Hugo.  No  matter  how  Zolaesque 
his  stories  might  be,  he  had  these  two  unquestionable 
claims  on  Swinburne's  approbation. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  a  wonderful  aura  of  charm 
hung  about  the  person  of  this  astonishing  man  of 
genius.  Swinburne  might  be  absurd ;  he  could 
not  fail  to  be  distinguished.  He  might  be  quixotic  ; 
he  was  never  mean  or  timid  or  dull.  He  repre- 
sented, in  its  most  flamboyant  shape,  revolt  against 
the  concessions  and  the  hypocrisies  of  the  mid- 
Victorian  era,  "  this  ghastly,  thin-faced  time  of  ours." 
An  extraordinary  exhilaration  accompanied  his  pres- 
ence, something  uplifted,  extravagant,  and  yet  un- 
selfish. No  one  has  ever  lived  who  loved  poetry 
more  passionately,  found  in  it  more  inexhaustible 
sources  of  pleasure,  cultivated  it  more  thoroughly 
for  itself,  more  sincerely  for  nothing  which  it 
might  be  persuaded  to  offer  as  a  side  issue. 
Half  Swinburne's  literary  influence  depended 
upon  little,  unregarded  matters,  such  as  his 
unflinching  attitude  of  worship  towards  the  great 
masters,  his  devotion  to  unpopular  causes,  his 
uncompromising  arrogance  in  the  face  of  conven- 
tionality. It  is  becoming  difficult  to  recapture  even 
the  thrill  he  caused  by  his  magic  use  of  "  unpoetic  " 
monosyllables,  such  as  "bloat,"  "pinch,"  "rind," 
"fang,"  "wince,"  embedded  in  the  very  heart  of 
his  ornate  melody.  But  his  meteoric  flight  across 
the  literary  heavens,  followed  by  the  slow  and 
dignified  descent  of  the  glimmering  shower  of 
sparks,  will  long  excite  curiosity,  even  when  the 


58  Portraits  and  Sketches 

sensation  it  caused  has  ceased  to  be  quite  intelligible. 
Yet  those  who  stood  under  the  apparition,  and  stared 
in  amazement  at  its  magnificent  audacity,  must  not 
be  over-much  surprised  if  a  generation  is  arising 
that  fails  to  comprehend  what  the  phenomenon 
meant  to  the  original  spectators. 

1909-12. 


PHILIP    JAMES     BAILEY 

1816-1902 


PHILIP    JAMES    BAILEY 

AT  the  opening  of  the  year  1902  there  were  still 
alive  amongst  us  two  men  who  survived  as  repre- 
sentatives of  what  poetry  was  in  these  islands  before 
the  commencement  of  the  Victorian  era.  Mr. 
Aubrey  de  Vere,  having  reached  his  eighty-ninth 
year,  passed  away  on  January  20  ;  Mr.  Philip  James 
Bailey,  in  his  eighty-seventh,  on  September  7.  So, 
as  we  sit  quietly  and  watch,  we  see  history  un- 
rolling, since,  in  the  chronicle  of  our  literature, 
the  closure  of  a  great  and  complicated  system  of 
poetic  activity  was,  in  a  sense,  defined  by  the  deaths 
of  these  venerable  men.  Moreover — and  this  is 
curious — in  each  of  these  survivors  we  had,  living 
before  us,  types — not  quite  of  the  first  order,  indeed, 
but  yet  vivid  types — of  the  two  main  divisions  of 
the  English  poetry  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  :  that,  namely,  which  was  devoted  to  a 
reasonable  grace,  and  that  which  was  uplifted  on 
a  mystical  enthusiasm.  So  that  a  sermon  on  the 
verse  of  that  time  might  well  take  as  its  text  the 
opposed  and  yet  related  names  of  De  Vere  and 
Bailey. 

Nothing  so   extensive  is  to  be  attempted  here. 
But  before  endeavouring  to  define  the  character  of 


62  Portraits  and  Sketches 

the  talent  of  the  younger  of  these  veterans,  and 
to  note  the  place  of  "  Festus "  in  the  history  of 
letters,  we  may  linger  a  moment  on  what  re- 
semblance there  was  between  the  two  aged  men, 
so  intensely  opposed  in  their  general  disposition 
of  mind  and  their  walk  in  the  world.  They  had 
in  common  an  exquisite  personal  dignity,  Mr.  de 
Vere  moving  in  the  genial  companionship  of  like- 
minded  friends,  both  in  Ireland  and  in  London  ; 
Mr.  Bailey  immobile  in  his  hermitage  at  Notting- 
ham. They  had  in  common  the  happy  fate  which 
preserved  to  each  in  extreme  old  age  all  the 
faculties  of  the  mind,  the  sweetest  cheerfulness, 
the  most  ardent  hopefulness,  an  optimism  that 
nothing  could  assail  and  that  disease  itself  avoided. 
Each,  above  all,  to  a  very  remarkable  degree,  pre- 
served to  the  last  his  religious  devotion  to  that  art 
to  which  his  life  had  been  dedicated  ;  each  to  the 
very  end  was  full  of  a  passionate  love  of  verse. 
Song-intoxicated  men  they  were,  both  of  them ; 
preserving  their  delight  in  poetry  far  beyond  the 
common  limits  of  an  exhilaration  in  any  mental 
matter. 

When  this  has  been  said,  it  is  the  difference  far 
more  than  the  resemblance  between  them  which 
must  strike  the  memory.  Of  the  imaginative  op- 
position which  the  author  of  "  Festus "  offered 
to  the  entire  school  of  which  Mr.  de  Vere  was 
a  secondary  ornament  more  will  be  said  later. 
But  the  physical  opposition  was  immense  between 
the  slightness  of  figure  and  flexible  elegance  of  the 


Philip  James  Bailey  63 

Irish  poet,  with  his  mundane  mobility,  and  the 
stateliness  of  Mr.  Bailey.  Mr.  de  Vere  never 
seemed  to  be  an  old  man,  but  a  young  man  dried 
up ;  Mr.  Bailey,  of  whose  appearance  my  recollec- 
tions go  back  at  least  thirty  years,  always  during 
that  time  looked  robustly  aged,  a  sort  of  prophet 
or  bard,  with  a  cloud  of  voluminous  white  hair 
and  curled  silver  beard.  As  the  years  went  by 
his  head  seemed  merely  to  grow  more  handsome, 
almost  absurdly,  almost  irritatingly  so,  like  a  picture 
of  Connal,  "first  of  mortal  men,"  in  some  illustrated 
edition  of  Ossian.  The  extraordinary  suspension 
of  his  gaze,  his  gentle,  dazzling  aspect  of  uninter- 
rupted meditation,  combined  with  a  curious  down- 
ward arching  of  the  lips,  seen  through  the  white 
rivers  of  his  beard,  to  give  a  distinctly  vatic 
impression.  He  had  an  attitude  of  arrested  in- 
spiration, as  if  waiting  for  the  heavenly  spark  to 
fall  again,  as  it  had  descended  from  1836  to  1839, 
and  as  it  seemed  never  inclined  to  descend  again. 
But  the  beauty  of  Mr.  Bailey's  presence,  which 
was  so  marked  as  to  be  an  element  that  cannot  be 
overlooked  in  a  survey  of  what  he  was,  had  an 
imperfection  in  its  very  perfectness.  It  lacked  fire. 
What  the  faces  of  Milton  and  Keats  possessed, 
what  we  remember  in  the  extraordinary  features  of 
Tennyson,  just  this  was  missing  in  Mr.  Bailey,  who, 
nevertheless,  might  have  sat  to  any  scene-painter 
in  Christendom  as  the  type  of  a  Poet. 


64  Portraits  and  Sketches 

I 

English  literature  in  the  reign  of  William  IV. 
is  a  subject  which  has  hitherto  failed  to  attract  a 
historian.  It  forms  a  small  belt  or  streak  of  the 
most  colourless,  drawn  across  our  variegated  in- 
tellectual chronicle.  The  romantic  movement  of 
the  end  of  the  preceding  century  had  gradually 
faded  into  emotional  apathy  by  1830,  and  the  years 
which  England  spent  under  the  most  undignified 
and  inefficient  of  her  monarchs  were  few  indeed, 
but  highly  prosaic.  Most  of  the  mental  energy 
of  the  time  went  out  in  a  constitutional  struggle 
which  was  necessary,  but  was  not  splendid.  A 
man  is  hardly  at  his  best  when  his  own  street-door 
has  been  slammed  in  his  face,  and  he  stands  outside 
stamping  his  feet  and  pulling  the  bell.  The  decade 
which  preceded  the  accession  of  Victoria  was,  in 
literature,  a  period  of  cold  reason  :  the  best  that 
could  be  said  of  the  popular  authors  was  that 
they  were  sensible.  A  curious  complacency  marked 
the  age,  a  self-sufficiency  which  expressed  itself  in 
extraordinarily  unemotional  writing.  To  appreciate 
the  heavy  and  verbose  deadness  of  average  English 
prose  in  the  thirties  we  must  dip  into  the  books  then 
popular.  No  volume  of  the  essay  class  was  so 
much  in  vogue  as  the  "  Lacon "  of  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Colton,  a  work  the  aridity  of  which  can  only  be 
comprehended  by  those  who  at  this  date  have  the 
courage  to  attack  it.  Mr.  Colton,  although  he 
preached  the  loftiest  morality,  was  a  gambling 


Philip  James  Bailey  65 

parson,  and  shot  himself,  in  1832,  in  the  Forest 
of  Fontainebleau.  But  that  did  not  affect  the 
popularity  of  his  chain  of  dusty  apophthegms. 

The  starvation  of  the  higher  faculties  of  the  mind 
in  the  William  IV.  period  was  something  which  we 
fail  to-day  to  realise.  No  wonder  Carlyle  thought, 
in  1835,  that  "Providence  warns  me  to  have  done 
with  literature,"  and  in  1837  saw  nothing  for  it  but 
to  "  buy  a  rifle  and  a  spade,  and  withdraw  to  the 
Transatlantic  wilderness."  In  the  letters  of  Tennyson 
we  may  easily  read  what  it  was  that,  after  the 
failure  of  his  enchanting  volumes  of  1830  and  1833, 
kept  him  silent  in  despair  for  ten  of  his  best  years. 
This  was  the  dead  lull  during  which  the  moral 
storms  of  1840-1850  were  preparing  to  gather.  It 
was  the  time  when  the  Puseyite  controversy  was 
beginning,  when  "  Tracts  for  the  Times,"  under  an 
oppressive  obloquy  and  miscomprehension,  were 
making  a  struggle  for  religious  warmth  and  air.  A 
chilly  light  of  reason  applied  to  morals,  that  was 
what  the  subjects  of  William  IV.  desired  to 
contemplate,  and  poetry  itself  was  called  upon  to 
make  a  definite  concession  to  the  gospel  of  utility. 
Romance  was  at  its  lowest  ebb,  and  even — 

the  ghost  ofMiltiades  rose  by  night 
And  stood  by  the  bed  of  the  Benthamite. 

Among  poets  who  possessed  the  public  ear  at  that 
time,  the  aged  Wordsworth  stood  first,  but  the 
prestige  of  the  laureate,  Southey,  who  had  been  one 
of  the  most  active  and  authoritative  of  reviewers, 

£ 


66  Portraits  and  Sketches 

was,  in  many  circles,  paramount.  Now  Southey— 
as  his  most  prominent  disciple,  Sir  Henry  Taylor, 
has  proudly  told  us — "  took  no  pleasure  in  poetic 
passion."  By  the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking, 
however,  Southey  and  even  Wordsworth  had  passed 
into  the  background  of  active  life,  but  there  had 
been  no  reaction  against  the  quietism  of  their  later 
days.  That  quietism  had  taken  possession  of  the 
taste  of  the  country,  and  had  gradually  ousted  the 
only  serious  rival  it  had  seemed  to  possess,  the 
violence  of  Byron.  It  was  at  this  time,  in  the  full 
tide  of  Benthamism,  that  Henry  Taylor  attempted  a 
poetical  coup  d'etat  which  demands  close  attention 
from  the  student  of  our  literary  history. 

In  publishing  his  enormous  drama  of  "  Philip  van 
Artevelde,"  in  1834,  Henry  Taylor  took  occasion  to 
issue  a  preface  which  is  now  far  more  interesting  to 
read  than  his  graceful  verse.  He  thought  the  time 
had  come  to  stamp  out  what  he  called  "the  mere 
luxuries  of  poetry."  He  was  greatly  encouraged  by 
the  general  taste  of  the  public,  which  obviously 
was  finding  highly-coloured  literature  inacceptable, 
and  in  a  preface  of  singular  boldness,  not  unadroit 
in  its  logic,  Taylor  presumed  to  dictate  terms  to  the 
poets.  He  begged  them,  for  the  future,  to  walk  the 
common  earth  and  breathe  the  common  air.  He 
entreated  them  to  believe  that  forcible  expression, 
fervid  feeling,  and  beautiful  imagery  are  useless  if 
employed  in  connection  with  thoughts  that  are 
not  "sound."  There  was  to  be  no  health  for  us 
unless  reason  had  full  supremacy  over  imagination. 


Philip  James  Bailey  67 

Reflection  must  take  the  place  of  mere  "  feeling," 
thought  the  place  of  imagery.  Passion,  so  this 
faithful  disciple  of  Southey  thought,  was  to  be 
regarded  as  a  direct  danger  and  disadvantage. 

Nor  did  the  preface  of  1834  confine  itself  to  the 
encouragement  of  what  was  tame  and  good  ;  it 
descended  into  the  dust,  and  wrestled  with  lions 
that  were  wild  and  bad.  It  fought  with  Byron,  as 
Christian  fought  with  Apollyon,  conscious  of  the 
awful  strength  of  its  supernatural  opponent.  It 
fought  less  strenuously,  and  with  a  touch  of  contempt, 
with  "  the  brilliant  Mr.  Shelley,"  to  whom  it  could 
afford  to  be  condescending.  It  glanced  round  the 
arena  without  being  able  so  much  as  to  observe  an 
antagonist  who,  to  our  eyes,  fills  the  picture,  and  is 
alone  sufficient  to  condemn  all  the  "  Philip  van 
Artevelde  "  arguments  and  theories.  This  is  Keats, 
of  whom,  so  far  as  we  can  discover  from  this 
preface,  Taylor  had,  in  1834,  never  even  heard,  or 
else  despised  so  entirely  that  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
to  mention  his  name. 

The  Preface  to  "  Philip  van  Artevelde"  enjoyed  a 
great  success.  Its  assumptions  were  accepted  by 
the  reviewers  as  poetic  canon  law.  It  was  admitted 
without  reserve  that  the  function  of  poetry  was  "  to 
infer  and  to  instruct."  The  poets  were  warned 
to  occupy  themselves  in  future  mainly  with  what 
was  rational  and  plain.  Henry  Taylor  had  made 
the  sweeping  charge  that  the  more  enthusiastic 
species  of  verse  was  apt  to  encourage  attention  by 
fixing  it  on  what  is  "puerile,  pusillanimous,  or 


68  Portraits  and  Sketches 

wicked."  There  was  a  great  searching  of  heart  in 
families  ;  the  newspapers  were  immense.  A  large 
number  of  copies  of  "Childe  Harold"  and  of 
"  Manfred "  were  confiscated,  and  examples  of 
Pollok's  "  Course  of  Time  "  (by  many  persons 
preferred  to  "  Paradise  Lost,"  as  of  a  purer 
orthodoxy)  were  substituted  for  them.  Even  the 
young  Macaulay,  who  had  suddenly  become  a 
power,  joined  the  enemy,  and  declared  that  "  perhaps 
no  person  can  be  a  poet,  or  can  ever  enjoy  poetry, 
without  a  certain  unsoundness  of  mind."  Ah,  but, 
cries  in  effect  the  excellent  Henry  Taylor,  we  will  so 
coerce  and  browbeat  and  depress  the  poets  that 
they  shall  not  think  a  thought  or  write  a  line  that  is 
not  "  sound,"  and  the  Benthamite  himself  (the 
stupendous  original  Jeremy  had  died,  of  course,  in 
1832)  shall  pluck,  unhandily  enough,  at  the  lyre 
now  consecrated  to  utility  and  decorum. 

It  was  the  old  balance  between  "stasy"  and 
"ec-stasy,"  and  Henry  Taylor  was,  to  a  certain 
extent,  justified  by  the  character  of  such  contempo- 
rary works  as  might  be  held  to  belong  to  the  ecstatic 
species.  It  did  not  seem  a  moment  at  which  great 
subjects  and  a  great  style  were  prepared  to  commend 
themselves.  The  most  prominent  indulgers  in 
"the  mere  luxury  of  poetry"  were  Heraud  and 
Reade,  whose  efforts  were  calculated  to  bring  instant 
ridicule  upon  imaginative  writing  by  their  hollow 
grandiloquence.  There  were  the  Byronisms  of 
Croly,  the  once-famous  author  of  that  gorgeous 
romance,  "  Salathiel,"  and  there  was  the  never- 


Philip  James  Bailey  69 

to-be-forgotten  Robert  Montgomery.  All  these 
poetasters  merely  emphasised  and  justified  Henry 
Taylor's  protest.  In  genuine  poetry  of  a  highly 
imaginative  cast  there  appeared,  almost  wholly 
unregarded,  "  Pauline  "  and  "  Paracelsus,"  and  in 
1838  Miss  Barrett  produced,  in  defiance  of  the 
taste  of  the  age,  her  irregular  and  impassioned 
"  Seraphim."  None  of  these  publications,  however, 
disturbed  in  the  least  degree  the  supremacy  of  the 
school  of  good  sense,  or  threatened  that  "  equipoise 
of  reason  "  which  the  disciples  of  Southey  thought 
that  they  had  fixed  for  ever.  Poetry  was  to  preserve 
its  logical  judgment ;  it  was  never  to  "  let  itself  go." 
The  cardinal  importance  of  Bailey's  "  Festus "  is 
that  it  was  the  earliest  direct  counterblast  to  this 
scheme  of  imaginative  discipline,  and  that  when  it 
appeared  in  1839  the  walls  built  up  by  Henry 
Taylor's  arrogant  preface  immediately  began  to 
crumble  down. 


II 

The  extraordinary  poem  which  thus  recalled 
English  literature  to  the  ecstatic  after  a  period  of 
bondage  to  the  static,  and  attracted  the  astonishment 
of  the  public  by  leading  a  successful  revolt  against 
baldness,  against  what  a  critic  of  the  time  called 
"  the  pride  of  natural  barrenness,"  was  the  work  of 
an  extremely  young  man.  Philip  James  Bailey 
was  born  in  Nottingham  on  April  22, 1816.  He  was 
the  son  of  a  journalist  of  an  excellent  provincial 


jo  Portraits  and  Sketches 

type,  a  sturdy  local  politician,  antiquary,  and 
philanthropist,  himself  an  amateur  in  verse,  "an 
inveterate  rhymer,"  we  are  told,  and  full  of 
enthusiasm  for  new  ideas  as  they  revealed  them- 
selves to  active-thinking  persons  in  those  repressed 
and  stunted  thirties.  The  father  of  Philip  James 
Bailey  promptly  acquiesced,  like  the  father  of 
Robert  Browning,  in  the  decision  of  his  son  to 
adopt  "the  vocation  of  a  poet,"  and  the  boy 
seems  to  have  been  educated  to  that  end,  as 
others  to  become  chartered  accountants  or 
solicitors.  Nominally,  indeed,  the  latter  profession 
was  selected  for  young  Bailey,  who,  nevertheless,  as 
early  as  1835,  is  understood  to  have  begun  to  plan 
his  great  poem.  It  is  further  related  that  in  1836 — 
the  young  man  was  in  his  twentieth  year — he  began 
to  write  "  Festus,"  and  in  1838  had  finished  the 
first  draft  of  it. 

So  far  as  it  appears,  there  was  nothing  but 
irresistible  vocation  and  a  selective  use  of  the  most 
sympathetic  models  which  led  Bailey  back  to  what 
had  so  long  and  so  completely  been  neglected  in 
English  poetry,  the  record  of  the  subtler  action  of 
the  mind.  In  the  midst  of  a  fashion  for  scrupulous 
common  sense  and  "  the  equipoise  of  reason,"  here 
was  a  young  man  of  twenty  who,  without  any  sort 
of  impetus  from  without,  and  in  defiance  of  current 
criticism,  devoted  himself  to  the  employment  of 
clothing  philosophic  speculation  with  almost  reck- 
less imagery.  Henry  Taylor  had  entreated  the 
poets  not  to  attempt  to  describe  anything  which 


Philip  James  Bailey  71 

cannot  "  be  seen  through  the  mere  medium  of  our 
eyesight."  But  from  the  very  outset  the  new  bard 
was  to  deal  wholly  with  impassioned  spiritual  life, 
exalted  into  a  sphere  unoccupied  except  by  rapture 
and  vision.  You  are  to  build,  practically  dictated 
the  Preface  of  "  Philip  van  Artevelde,"  nothing  but 
comfortable  two-storied  villas,  with  all  the  modern 
appliances.  The  architect  of  "Festus"  comes, 
raising  none  but  pinnacled  archangelic  mansions 
high  in  the  unapparent.  This  was  the  note  of  the 
amazement  with  which  "  Festus  "  was  received  in 
1839.  It  bore  a  message  of  good  tidings  to  spiritual 
souls  starving  in  a  utilitarian  desert.  It  lifted  a 
palm-tree,  it  unsealed  a  well  in  the  arid  flats  of 
common  sense.  We  cannot,  in  the  light  of  all  that 
has  been  written  since,  appreciate  in  the  least 
degree  what  "  Festus  "  was  to  its  earliest  readers, 
unless  we  bear  this  in  mind.  All  the  yearnings 
for  the  unlimited,  all  the  suppressed  visions  of 
infinity,  all  who  groped  in  darkness  after  the  exces- 
sive, and  the  impassioned,  and  the  inconceivable, 
gathered  in  tumult  and  joy  to  welcome  this  new 
voice.  James  Montgomery  wrote  that,  after  reading 
"  Festus,"  he  felt  as  though  he  had  been  eating  of 
the  Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil. 

To  realise  what  it  was  which  hungry  visionaries 
found  in  the  new  poem,  it  is  necessary  to  turn  back  to 
what  it  was  which  was  presented  to  them  in  1839. 
The  first  edition  of  "Festus"  is  a  work  of  remark- 
able interest.  It  is  now  very  rare,  and  it  may  safely 
be  said  that  there  is  no  volume  which  justifies  more 


72  Portraits  and  Sketches 

completely  the  passion  or  mania  of  the  book- 
collector.  For  sixty-three  years  "  Festus  "  has  not 
lacked  readers,  and  edition  after  edition  has  steadily 
supplied  a  demand.  But  the  "Festus"  of  1901  is 
a  very  different  affair  from  the  volume  of  the  same 
name  of  1839.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  very  unlike 
it  in  size,  since  it  contains  about  40,000  verses,  while 
the  original  edition  has  something  less  than  10,000. 
We  shall  presently  have  to  describe  the  extra- 
ordinary manner  in  which  Mr.  Bailey,  during  sixty 
years,  steadily  added  to  the  bulk  of  his  poem.  But 
the  point  to  dwell  on  here  is  that  the  effect  made 
upon  his  own  generation  was  not  made  by  the  huge 
and  very  unwieldy  book  which  one  now  buys  as 
"  Festus "  in  the  shops,  but  by  a  poem  which  was 
already  lengthy,  yet  perfectly  within  the  bounds  of 
easy  reading.  It  seems  essential,  if  we  are  to  gauge 
that  effect,  to  turn  back  to  the  first  edition.  This 
was  a  large  octavo,  with  no  name  on  the  title-page, 
but  with  a  symbolic  back  presenting  a  malignant 
snake  flung  downwards  through  the  inane  by  the 
rays  that  dart  from  a  triangle  of  light,  a  very  proper 
preparation  for  the  redundant  and  arcane  invocations 
of  the  text  within  the  covers. 

The  attack  of  the  utilitarians  had  been  chiefly 
directed  against  the  disciples  of  Byron,  and  the  new 
poet  evaded  the  censure  of  such  critics  by  ignoring 
in  the  main  the  influence  of  that  daemonic  enchanter. 
It  is  specious  to  see  the  effect  of  "  Manfred  "  upon 
"  Festus,"  but  in  point  of  fact  the  resemblance  seems 
to  result  from  a  common  study  of  "  Faust."  Nor 


Philip  James  Bailey  73 

has  the  "  Dr.  Faustus  "  of  Marlowe — although,  since 
the  publication  of  Lamb's  "  Specimens "  in  1808, 
that  majestic  poem  had  been  within  every  one's 
reach — anything  very  definite  to  do  with  Bailey's 
conception.  This  was  founded,  almost  too  closely, 
on  that  of  Goethe's  "Faust."  The  result  of  the 
manipulation  of  later  editions  has  been  more  and 
more  to  disguise  the  resemblance  of  the  original 
draft  of  "  Festus  "  to  its  great  German  forerunner, 
and  to  this,  therefore,  with  the  edition  of  1839 
before  us,  we  must  give  a  moment's  attention. 

Bailey's  poem  began,  not  as  it  does  now,  but  with 
an  abrupt  introduction  of  the  reader  to  Heaven, 
exactly  as  in  "  Faust,"  with  a  "  Prolog  im  Himmel." 
In  each  case  God  himself  speaks,  and  in  a  triplet  of 
verses.  There  is  a  "Chor  der  Engel,"  called  by 
Bailey  "Seraphim"  and  "Cherubim,"  and  these 
combine  in  a  great  burst  of  melodious  adoration, 
like  "die  himmelischen  Heerschaaren "  in  "Faust." 
Lucifer  demands  the  soul  of  Festus  to  sport  with, 
exactly  as  Mephistopheles  asks  for  Faust.  When 
the  tempter  abruptly  appears  to  his  meditating 
mortal  victim,  the  startled  "  Who  art  thou,  pray  ?  " 
of  Festus  is  precisely  the  "  Wie  nennst  du  dich  ? " 
of  Faust.  Later  on,  Lucifer  and  Festus  ride  Ruin 
and  Darkness,  the  black  colts  of  the  Evil  One, 
exactly  as  Faust  and  Mephistopheles  do  their  black 
steeds  after  the  Walpurgisnacht.  In  the  1839  edition 
of  "  Festus"  the  lyrical  element  is  very  much  more 
prominent  than  in  the  later  editions,  where  it  has 
been  steadily  superseded  by  blank  verse.  These 


74  Portraits  and  Sketches 


odes  and  choruses  in  the  original  text  are  plainly 
modelled  upon  the  lyrics  in  the  German  poem,  and, 
what  is  curious,  it  seems  to  be  rather  the  second 
than  the  first  part  of  "  Faust "  which  has  attracted 
the  English  rhapsodist,  whose  cantatas  occasionally 
recall,  in  their  form,  those  of  the  "Chor  seliger 
Knaben  "  and  the  rest. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  mode  in  which 
Goethe  influenced  the  mind  of  the  young  Notting- 
ham poet,  whose  masterpiece  was  to  be  the  most 
important  contribution  to  English  literature  in  which 
rivalry  with  "  Faust  "  is  predominant.  Bailey,  as 
I  am  informed,  never  resided  in  Germany,  and  had 
but  a  scanty  knowledge  of  the  German  language. 
The  only  direct  reference  to  Goethe  which  I  have 
found  in  his  writings  occurs  in  "  The  Age,"  where  he 
remarks  that — 

Wolfgangs  "  Faust"  jlames  forth  the  fire  divine 
In  many  a  so/id  thought  and  glowing  line — 

a  couplet  of  not  particularly  luminous  criticism. 
I  suppose  that  Bailey  was  not  constrained  to 
spell  out  the  original,  since,  by  1836,  Goethe  was 
not  without  interpreters  in  this  country.  The 
acquaintance  of  Englishmen  with  Goethe  as  a  force 
hardly  existed  earlier  than  1827,  when  Carlyle's  two 
great  essays  made  their  mark.  In  1831  Abraham 
Hay  ward  led  the  army  of  translators  with  a  privately 
printed  "  Faust,"  and  in  1832  a  certain  sensation  was 
caused  in  English  intellectual  circles  by  the  death 
of  Goethe,  a  reverberating  event.  Then  followed 


Philip  James  Bailey  75 

version  upon  version,  comment  upon  comment ; 
the  publication  to  the  outer  world  of  Hayward  in 
1833,  in  1835  tne  "Faust"  of  Dr.  Anster,  eagerly 
commended  by  the  Edinburgh  Review — these,  we 
may  shrewdly  conjecture,  were  the  main  media  of 
inspiration  to  the  youthful  Bailey,  although  he  prob- 
ably glanced  at  the  original.  Moreover,  there 
existed  a  widely  circulated  portfolio  of  designs  for 
"  Faust "  by  Ritzsch,  with  some  text  in  English  ; 
these  drawings  were  in  the  hands  of  the  infant 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  it  appears,  by  1836,  and  may 
very  well  have  stimulated  the  imagination  of  the 
adolescent  author  of  "  Festus."  There  can  be,  at 
all  events,  no  awkwardness  in  comprehending  that 
the  latter,  without  any  deep  knowledge  of  the  Ger- 
man language,  but  by  a  mere  happy  inevitable 
instinct,  could  grasp  the  essential  character  of  the 
sublime  poem  of  Goethe,  and  bend  its  design  to  his 
own  ends.  The  difficulty,  I  confess,  to  me  is  that, 
as  I  have  said,  "  Festus  "  seems  to  presuppose  fami- 
liarity with  some  scenes,  at  least,  of  the  second 
part  of  "Faust,"  which  had  not  been  published 
anywhere  until  1831,  and  was  but  slowly  and 
confusedly  recognised  in  England. 

In  the  evolution  of  a  plot  the  English  drama  was 
far  less  successful  than  its  German  exemplar.  The 
great  disadvantage  of  "  Festus "  was  immediately 
perceived  to  be  its  lack  of  coherent  outline.  Eliza- 
beth Barrett  remarked  that  "  the  fine  things  were 
worth  looking  for,  in  the  design  manque.''  Home, 
one  of  the  earliest  and  most  judicious  of  admirers, 


Portraits  and  Sketches 


lamented  that  the  framework  of  the  poem  was 
unworthy  of  its  eminent  beauties  of  detail.  The 
plot  of  "  Festus  "  is,  in  fact,  too  slight  to  bear  the 
heavy  robes  of  brocade  which  are  hung  about  its 
insufficiency.  To  make  such  a  work  durably  weighty 
it  should  have  an  actual  story,  complicated  and 
animated  enough  to  arrest  attention.  This  was 
perfectly  comprehended  by  Goethe  in  both  parts 
of  "  Faust."  But  the  narrative  element  in  "  Festus" 
is  thin  and  vague  to  excess.  The.  hero  is  a  human 
soul,  of  the  highest  gifts  and  attainments,  doomed 
to  despair  and  melancholy,  and  unwillingly  enslaved 
to  sin.  The  mode  in  which  he  becomes  the  play- 
thing of  the  arch-spirit  of  evil  is  impressive,  but 
scarcely  intelligible  ;  nor  are  the  relations  of  the 
tempter  to  his  victim  ever  realised  in  a  vividly 
dramatic  or  narrative  way.  It  would  be  an  almost 
impossible  feat  to  separate  the  "  story  "  or  plot  of 
"Festus"  from  its  lyrical  and  rhetorical  ornament. 
One  has  to  face  the  fact  that  the  poem  exists  in  and 
for  these  purple  robes,  and  that  it  is  essentially  a 
series  of  transcendent  visions,  each  clothed  upon  by 
a  fresh  set  of  more  or  less  sumptuous  and  redundant 
imagery. 

The  keynote  of  "  Festus  "  is  a  spiritual  optimism. 
The  lesson  of  the  poem  was  easily  perceived  to  be 
insistence  upon  the  ministry  of  evil  as  a  purifier. 
Man  was  to  pass  through  sin  as  through  a  fire,  and 
to  come  out  purged  from  the  dross  of  humanity. 
At  the  opening  of  the  poem  the  note  of  hope  is 
struck.  In  spite  of  Lucifer,  and  of  all  his  ingenious 


Philip  James  Bailey  77 

activity,  Earth  and  Man  are  improving.  But  God 
(the  youthful  Bailey  was  extraordinarily  familiar 
with  the  mind  of  the  Creator),  in  a  speech  of 
disconcerting  petulance,  dooms  Earth  to  end  : 
"  Earth  to  death  is  given,"  and  the  pitying  angels 
cover  their  faces.  It  is  by  playing  upon  the  depres- 
sion of  one  who  inhabits  an  orb  which  is  about  to 
be  annihilated  that  Lucifer  obtains  his  ascendancy 
over  the  spirit  of  Festus  ;  he  approaches  him  in  the 
guise  of  a  giant  force,  placable  and  sane,  that  will 
give  the  longed-for  happiness.  But  Festus  rejects 
all  the  vulgar  forms  of  joy  : 

Spirit, 

It  ii  not  bliss  I  seek  ;  I  care  not  for  it. 

I  am  above  the  low  delights  of  life. 

The  life  1  live  is  in  a  dark  cold  cavern, 

Where  I  wander  up  and  down,  feeling  for  something 

Which  is  to  be  ;  and  must  be  ;  what,  I  know  not ; 

But  the  incarnation  of  my  destiny 

Is  nigh  .  .  . 

The  worm  of  the  world  hath  eaten  out  my  heart. 

Lucifer  is  equal  to  the  opportunity  ;  he  promises  to 
renew  the  heart  of  Festus  within  him,  and  to  endow 
it  with  immortality  in  spite  of  God.  Festus  wavers, 
but  he  is  now  launched  upon  a  career  of  super- 
natural adventures,  presented  to  us  in  a  succession 
of  scenes  and  visions.  These  are  pleasing  in  pro- 
portion with  their  seriousness,  for  Bailey  had  none 
of  Goethe's  gift  of  laughter,  and  his  "  comic  relief  " 
is  invariably  deplorable.  It  is  in  his  communion 


78  Portraits  and  Sketches 

with  infinity,  in  his  pictures  of  impassioned  spiritual 
life,  that  he  is  successful,  and  his  flights  are  most 
fully  to  be  trusted  when  they  carry  him  farthest 
up  into  the  empyrean. 

If  we  analyse  the  narrative  of  "  Festus,"  we  are 
led  to  strange  and  awkward  conclusions.  The 
Spirit  of  Evil,  embodied  in  Lucifer,  rarely  coincides 
with  the  ethical  action  of  guilt,  and  is  often  actually 
in  collision  with  it.  One  does  not  see  what  Lucifer 
has  to  gain  from  his  ascendancy  over  Festus,  since 
that  personage  continues  melancholy,  active  in 
aspiration,  in  will  passionately  virtuous.  The  great 
evidence  of  his  spiritual  peril  is  the  yielding  of  his 
intellect  to  the  Devil,  but  Bailey  is  too  delicate 
to  carry  out  this  submission  to  any  practical  issue. 
If  Lucifer  is  very  audacious,  Festus  does  not  em- 
brace the  wicked  suggestion,  but  turns  and  rates 
the  tempter,  in  tones  dignified  and  courteous,  like 
those  of  Dr.  Primrose  reproving  sin  in  Mr.  Thorn  - 
hill.  On  their  Walpurgisnacht-ride  over  the  world 
Festus  and  Lucifer  overhear  an  island-people,  on 
their  knees  before  a  maiden  fair,  singing  "  Hail, 
Victoria  !  Princess,  hail  !"  (A.D.  1837),  an<^  quaintly 
enough  it  seems  to  be  gratitude  to  Lucifer  for 
having  shown  him  this  patriotic  scene  which  finally 
conquers  the  scruples  of  Festus  and  binds  him  to 
the  tempter. 

The  central  incidents  of  the  poem  are  sometimes 
difficult  to  follow.  Lucifer  takes  Festus  up  into 
the  planet  Venus,  where  they  have  an  interview 
with  the  Muse,  and  where  Angela,  the  dead  love  of 


Philip  James  Bailey  79 

Festus,  appears  to  him.  The  scene  changes  to 
earth,  and  Festus  is  discovered  with  one  "my 
Helen  "  at  what  the  stage-direction  calls  "  a  large 
party  and  entertainment."  This  episode,  or  lyrical 
intermezzo,  is  long,  and  breaks  the  poem  into  two 
parts ;  it  was  considered  very  sprightly  in  the 
forties.  Festus  sings  the  following  song  at  supper  : 

Thy  nature  is  so  pure  andjine, 

'Tis  most  like  wine; 
Thy  bloody  which  blushes  thro1  each  vein, 

Rosy  champagne; 
And  the  fair  skin  which  o'er  it  grows, 

Bright  as  its  snows. 
Thy  wit,  which  thou  dost  work  so  well, 

Is  like  cool  moselle; 
Like  madeira,  bright  and  warm. 

Is  thy  smile's  charm ; 
Clarets  glory  hath  thine  eye, 

Or  mine  must  lie; 
But  nought  can  like  thy  lip  possess 

Dehciousness ! 

And  now  that  thou  art  divinely  merry, 
VII  kiss  and  call  thee,  sparkling  sherry. 

When  Bailey  is  "  divinely  merry "  he  puts  the 
Muses  out  of  countenance  ;  yet  this  amazing  ana- 
creontic has  survived  through  all  the  editions  of 
"  Festus."  The  social  occasion  which  opens  with 
this  gaiety  proves  a  very  lengthy  and  animated 
affair ;  there  are  rompings  and  singing  of  arch  songs, 
and  the  discomfortable  practice  of  wearing,  beneath 


8o  Portraits  and  Sketches 

the  lamp,  wreaths  of  flowers  which  have  been 
dipped  in  the  wine-cup,  much  prevails.  An  extra- 
ordinary number  of  kisses,  and  vows,  and  amorous 
forfeits  are  exchanged,  and  Lucifer  takes  a  modest 
and  agreeable  part  in  the  entertainment.  But  at 
Nottingham,  in  the  reign  of  William  IV.,  the  most 
successful  evening  parties  came  to  an  end  before 
midnight,  and  one  George  having  gone  so  far  as  to 
propose  that  a  certain  Fanny  should  "  fold  him  bee- 
like  on  her  bosom's  gentle  tide,"  both  Festus  and 
Lucifer  feel  that  it  is  time  to  separate,  and  the 
latter  proposes  that  George  should  "shake  hands, 
man,  with  eternity,"  or,  in  other  words,  should  go 
home  to  bed.  The  stage-direction  is,  "They 
break  up." 

From  these  faded  pleasantries  it  is  strange  to 
turn  to  the  serious  portions  of  the  poem,  which 
have  preserved  to  a  remarkable  degree  their  fresh- 
ness and  sonority.  Almost  immediately  after  this 
"  party,"  so  unhappy  in  its  provinciality,  we  come 
upon  a  scene  admirably  dramatic  in  tone,  and  in  its 
excellent  ironic  note  of  mockery  not  unworthy  of 
Goethe  or  of  Ibsen,  in  which  Lucifer,  in  the 
guise  of  a  ranter  at  the  door  of  a  church,  preaches 
to  the  crowd  a  sermon  on  predestination,  fooling 
his  audience  savagely,  till,  at  last,  they  perceive 
his  intention  and  turn  to  kill  him.  There  is 
nothing  of  its  kind  finer  in  the  poetry  of  that  age 
than  this  magnificent  sermon  where  it  turns  from 
persiflage  to  contemptuous  invective.  "  Tremble  ! " 
cries  Lucifer  to  his  conventional  congregation — 


Philip  James  Bailey  81 

Tremble  !  ye  dare  not  believe. 
No,  cowards  !  sooner  than  believe  ye  would  die. 
Die  with  the  black  lie  flapping  on  your  lips 
Like  the  soot-flake  upon  a  burning  bar. 
Be  merry,  happy  if  ye  can :  think  never 
Of  him  who  slays  your  souls,  nor  Him  who  saves, — 
There's  time  enough  for  that  when  you're  a-dying! 

Men  are  not  to  resist — such  is  the  gospel  of 
Lucifer  ;  let  yourselves  go,  he  preaches,  be  swept  on. 
Resistance  is  the  beginning  of  spiritual  life,  it  gives 
God  his  chance  for  leverage.  "  Prance  merrily 
off,  skim  like  bubbles  on  the  river,  for  then  you 
are  sure  to  come  to  me."  This  is  very  Goethesque  : 
"stiirzt  euch  in  Peneios',Fluth  !"  one  remembers. 

Although  the  subject  is  so  audacious  and  apoca- 
lyptical, the  text  of  the  first  edition  of  "  Festus  "  is 
remarkable  for  simplicity  of  diction.  There  is  a 
general  absence  of  pomposity  ;  the  author  is  in- 
spired, with  evident  earnestness,  by  a  genuine 
ecstasy  of  spiritual  life.  He  submits  to  "  visions  of 
sublime  convocation,"  but  he  avoids  the  error  of 
translating  these  into  swollen  and  preposterous 
language.  It  is  the  more  needful  to  insist  on  this 
because  in  later  editions  Bailey  contrived  to  spoil 
his  poem  in  this  respect.  He  lost  a  great  deal  of  his 
directness  of  speech,  and  he  substituted  for  it,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  a  bombastic  splendour  which 
did  him  grievous  wrong.  But  the  blank  verse  of 
the  original  "  Festus,"  which  has  something  of  the 
best  parts  of  Young's  "Night  Thoughts"  (that 
very  stately  piece  of  elaborate  rhetoric,  nowadays 

F 


82  Portraits  and  Sketches 

so  unjustly  decried),  is  plain,  full,  and  direct,  with 
curious  touches  of  realism.  Its  lyrics  are  less 
happy.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  ballad  of  "  The  Gipsy 
Maid,"  we  have  such  a  vivid  improvisation  as  we 
could  imagine  a  bard  composing  by  a  watch-fire 
in  a  mountain-pass,  with  no  art,  no  care,  yet 
with  a  long  breath  of  melancholy  music.  But,  in 
the  main,  it  is  the  non-lyrical  parts  of  "  Festus  " 
which  fascinate  its  readers  now,  as  they  did  those  of 
sixty  years  ago,  by  their  unsatisfied  yearnings  after 
infinity,  their  enfranchised  metaphysical  specula- 
tion, and  their  uplifted  clarion-cries  of  melody  and 
vision. 

Ill 

Reviewers  of  the  prevailing  school,  who  held 
that  poetry  should  be  rational,  broad,  and  calm, 
received  "Festus"  in  1839  with  bewilderment. 
To  some  of  them  it  seemed  less  an  achievement 
in  art  than  an  exercise  in  theological  mysticism  run 
mad.  But  the  general  verdict  of  the  best  judges 
was  highly  favourable,  and  when  it  became  known 
that  it  was  the  production  of  a  youth  of  two-and- 
twenty,  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  portent. 

There  seemed  nothing  preposterous  in  comparing 
such  a  work  with  the  famous  monuments  of 
literary  precocity,  with  the  "Ode  on  Christ's 
Nativity,"  with  the  "  Essay  on  Criticism,"  with 
"  Endymion."  What  might  not  the  author  attain 
to  ?  It  could  not  be  questioned  that  "  Festus  "  was 
a  better  poem  than  "Queen  Mab"  ;  why  should 


Philip  James  Bailey  83 

young  Bailey  not  grow  up  to  be  as  great  a  poet  as 
Shelley  ?  Already  he  possessed  sustained  powers 
of  a  very  high  order.  He  had  actually  achieved, 
at  these  his  tender  years,  a  body  of  philosophical 
verse  strenuous,  fervent,  and  elevated.  He  had 
already,  as  Swift  might  have  said,  his  wings  and  his 
music.  What  he  lacked  was  what  youth  never 
possesses,  a  sense  of  proportion,  a  delicacy  of 
workmanship,  a  full  command  over  his  materials. 
These  would  naturally  follow  with  the  ripening 
years,  "  which  mellow  what  we  write  to  the  dull 
sweets  of  rhyme." 

By  what  inscrutable  fate  was  it  ordained  that 
in  this  case  the  gifts  never  ripened  at  all  ?  At 
twenty-three  Bailey  was  perhaps  the  most  "  promis- 
ing "  of  living  English  poets,  and  at  eighty-six  that 
promise  was  still  to  be  fulfilled.  In  1902,  as  in 
1839,  Philip  James  Bailey  was  the  author  of 
"  Festus,"  neither  more  nor  less.  Had  he  died  in 
the  last-mentioned  year  he  would  have  retained  a 
foremost  place  among  our  "  inheritors  of  unfulfilled 
renown  "  ;  he  would  be  habitually  mentioned  with 
Chatterton.  But,  by  the  oddest  irony,  he  survived, 
actively  endeavouring  to  improve  his  position,  until 
extreme  old  age,  and  yet  was  never  able  to  recapture 
his  earliest  melody  and  fervour.  Meanwhile  his 
arrested  development  and  successive  mishaps  did 
not  affect  to  any  appreciable  degree  the  fate  of  his 
solitary  production,  which  continued  and  continues 
still  to  have  a  wide  circle  of  readers.  The  case  is  odd 
in  itself  and  singular  in  the  history  of  our  literature. 


84  Portraits  and  Sketches 

The  earliest  reception  of  "Festus"  was  mainly 
by  those  most  intimately  interested  in  the  art  of 
poetry.  Tennyson,  Bulvver  Lytton,  Thackeray, 
the  Brownings,  and  Home  were  among  its  few 
original  admirers  and  advocates.  But  as  time  went 
on,  the  ring  of  readers  spread  further  outwards 
and  became  steadily  less  esoteric.  The  edition  of 
1846,  which  bore  the  author's  name  on  the  title- 
page,  greatly  added  to  the  quantity  of  his  readers,  but 
took  something  from  their  quality.  Tennyson,  who 
had  been  rapturous,  while  advising  FitzGerald  to 
read  "  Festus  " — "  There  are  really  very  grand  things 
in  it" — confessed  that  his  correspondent  would 
"most  likely  find  it  a  great  bore."  (Any  human 
being,  by  the  way,  less  likely  to  appreciate 
"  Festus  "  than  FitzGerald  it  would  be  difficult  to 
imagine.)  The  Brownings,  even,  now  saw  spots  in 
the  sun.  But  with  this  slackening  of  technical  or 
professional  interest  in  Bailey  there  grew  up  a 
public  sympathy  founded  on  the  matter  of  his  poem, 
its  theological  positions,  its  doctrine  of  ultimate 
salvation,  its  bewitching  theory  of  remedial  chas- 
tisement, its  universalism.  This  process  of  divorce 
from  the  purely  literary  current  of  the  time  has 
continued  ever  since,  and  is  the  cause  of  several  of 
the  anomalies  of  Bailey's  celebrity. 

Borne  on  a  tide  of  imaginative  earnestness,  the 
young  author  had  declared  that  whatever  he  had 
received,  in  a  rush  of  improvisation,  was  made 
independent  of  the  workmanlike  attributes  of  the 
art  by  the  fullness  of  his  message  and  the  abundance 


Philip  James  Bailey  85 

of  his  imagery.  With  incomparable  boldness  this 
lad  of  twenty-three  had  written  as  the  colophon  of 
his  poem : 

Read  Ms,  world.'     He  who  writes  is  dead  to  thee, 
But  still  lives  in  these  leaves.     He  spake  inspired: 
Night  and  day,  thought  came  unhelped,  undesired, 

Like  blood  to  his  heart. 

This  is  an  impressive  attitude,  so  long  as  the 
inspiration  lasts  ;  but  suppose  it  to  be  withdrawn  ? 
It  is  then  that  the  rhapsodist  feels  the  lack  of  that 
craft  and  discipline  of  art  which  he  scorned  in  the 
hour  of  his  prophetic  afflatus.  There  was  never 
a  greater  disappointment  than  attended  the  publi- 
cation of  Bailey's  second  volume,  "  The  Angel 
World,"  in  1850.  The  opportunity  was  matchless, 
since  a  generation  had  now  grown  up  emancipated 
from  all  the  sedative  legislation  of  Southey  and 
Taylor.  Highly  coloured  poetry  was  at  present  in 
fashion  ;  imagination  had  reasserted  its  supremacy 
over  reason.  There  was  no  fear  that  Bailey's  verse 
would  be  reproved  because  of  its  excess  of  force  and 
fervour.  But  "  The  Angel  World,"  to  use  Jeffrey's 
phrase,  "wouldn't  do."  It  was  a  kind  of  celestial 
romance  in  blankverse,faintlyreminiscent  of  "  Eloa" 
and  still  more  faintly  of  "  The  Loves  of  the  Angels." 
It  repeated,  in  less  seductive  accents,  the  universalist 
dogma  of  "  Festus  " — good  and  bad  alike  were  finally 
to  be  lapped  in  the  mantle  of  the  Eternal  rest : 

They  who  had  erred  and  they  who  taught  to  err, 
A 'long  with  those  who,  wise  and  pure,  withstood. 


86  Portraits  and  Sketches 

But  it  was,  either  as  a  tale  or  as  a  sermon,  extra- 
ordinarily unexhilarating.  However,  although  the 
little  volume  has  never  been  re-issued,  the  reader 
may  in  this  matter  indolently  form  his  own  opinion, 
since  Bailey,  finding  that  people  would  not  accept 
"The  Angel  World,"  formed  an  ingenious  and  un- 
fortunate project,  which  he  continued  to  carry  out 
for  the  rest  of  his  life.  If  a  poem  was  received  by 
the  critics  and  the  public  with  marked  disfavour,  he 
would  be  even  with  them  by  putting  it  bodily  into 
the  next  edition  of  "  Festus."  The  argument  in  his 
mind  seems  to  have  been  something  like  this  :  "  You 
won't  read  my  new  piece,  and  you  say  you  prefer 
'Festus'?  Very  well,  then  it  shall  form  part  of 
'Festus/  and  so  you  will  be  obliged  to  read  it." 
Accordingly,  as  research  will  prove,  "  The  Angel 
World  "  was  broken  into  two  parts,  and  was  silently 
implanted  in  the  middle  of  the  next  edition  of 
"Festus,"  with  such  verbal  adaptations  as  were 
necessary,  but  otherwise  without  change. 

Internal  evidence  tends  to  show  that  the  crushing 
failure  of  "  The  Angel  World  "  convinced  the  poet 
of  his  error  in  depending  wholly  on  improvisation 
or  "inspiration."  In  1855  he  published  "The 
Mystic,"  a  volume  which  displays  a  close  preoccupa- 
tion with  form.  It  consists  of  three  unrelated  poems, 
of  which  the  first  is  modelled  on  Shelley's  "  Alastor," 
while  the  second,  called  "  A  Spiritual  Legend,"  is  a 
strenuous  and  almost  violent  pastiche  of  Miltonic 
blank  verse,  the  stresses  and  inversions  and  elisions 
of  the  rhythm  of  "  Paradise  Lost "  being  reproduced 


Philip   fames  Bailey  87 

as  though  for  a  wager.  In  particular,  the  Miltonic 
use  of  proper  names  is  introduced  without  restraint, 
so  as  to  produce  at  length  an  almost  ludicrous  effect, 
although  often  in  itself  beautiful  in  its  full  echo  of 
Milton  : 

By  great  SJiedaa,  city  occult,  whose  walls 
Towered  in  alternate  tiers  of  silver  and  gold ; 
Where  bright  Herat,  city  oj  roses,  lights 
With  dome  and  minaret  the  land  skip  green  ; 
Damasek  old,  old  Byblos,  or  Babel, 
Or  Tchelminar,  or  Baalbek,  or  where  Balkh, 
Mother  of  cities,  murally  encrowned, 
Mourns. 

There  are  magnificent  lines  in  both  these  poems, 
but  especially  in  "  A  Spiritual  Legend."  The  fault 
of  them  is  their  obscurity,  their  vagueness ;  it  is, 
frankly,  impossible  to  know  what  "The  Mystic" 
is  all  about.  It  must  be  considered  mainly  as  an 
exercise  in  versification,  undertaken,  oddly  and 
perhaps  pathetically,  by  a  poet  who  felt  that  some- 
thing divine,  a  gift  of  youth,  was  slipping  from  him, 
and  who  determined  to  recapture  it  by  a  tardy  and 
vain  preoccupation  with  the  form  and  structure  of 
verse. 

Certain  fragments  of  the  volume  of  1855  were 
shredded,  in  the  extraordinary  fashion  already  men- 
tioned, into  the  ever-swelling  "  Festus,"  although 
most  of  "  The  Mystic  "  was  rebellious  to  this  kind  of 
adaptation.  But  Bailey  had  formed  the  idea,  long 
before  this,  lhat  the  original  outline  of  "Festus" 
was  sufficiently  elastic  to  be  stretched  indefinitely  : 


Portraits  and  Sketches 


"  more  or  less  " — ambiguous  phrase  ! — he  had  per- 
ceived this  from  the  beginning,  he  wrote  in  1889. 
He  worked  everything  into  the  design  of  his  drama  ; 
he  accounted  for  all  his  later  fancies  and  rhapsodies 
by  thinking  "This  will  do  for  '  Festus.'"  He 
thought  that  there  had  been  revealed  to  him  a  new 
and  more  rational  idea  of  Hell,  and  he  now  scarcely 
wrote  anything  in  which  his  ideas  of  the  limitation 
of  punishment  and  the  eternity  of  universal  bliss 
did  not  find  place.  A  curious  example  of  this 
persistency  may  be  given.  The  last  of  the  three 
pieces  which  form  the  volume  of  1855  ^s  a  ballad 
called  "A  Fairy  Tale"  ;  it  is  one  of  Bailey's  least 
fortunate  productions,  a  languid  and  insipid  story 
of  how  a  little  girl  was  disporting  at  eve  in  a  verdant 
ring,  when  she  was  pounced  down  upon  by  the 
fairies,  and  persuaded  to  live  with  them.  The 
hasty  reader  might  easily  see  in  this  nothing  but 
a  piece  of  unusually  guileless  and  puerile  early 
Victorian  mock-romance,  but  if  he  pushes  on  he 
will  find  his  Bailey.  The  little  girl  casually  dis- 
covers that  the  fairies  are  greatly  dejected  by  their 
lack  of  a  soul,  so  she  sits  up  at  the  flower-embroidered 
banquet  and  eloquently  propounds  to  Sir  Oberon 
and  to  "  divine  Titania,  night's  incomparable  queen," 
the  glad  theory  of  universal  salvation.  It  really 
became  with  Bailey  a  King  Charles's  head. 

Of  the  later  publications  of  Bailey  it  is  kinder 
not  to  speak  in  detail.  "The  Age,"  of  1858,  was  a 
satire  on  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  day,  in 
heroic  couplets;  "Universal  Hymn,"  in  Thomsonian 


Philip  James  Bailey  89 

blank  verse,  of  1867,  was  cut  up  in  the  usual  way, 
to  feed  that  poetical  Oliver  Twist,  the  insatiable 
"Festus";  "Nottingham  Castle,"  of  1878,  was  an 
attempt  at  an  historical  ode  in  the  grand  style.  No 
poet  ever  did  more  in  his  later  years  to  destroy  the 
favourable  impression  created  by  the  writings  of  his 
youth.  For  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  Mr.  Bailey 
gave  up  the  vain  attempt  to  attract  readers  to  his 
miscellaneous  writings.  He  frankly  abandoned  them, 
and  we  deed  not  dwell  upon  them.  He  could 
afford  to  throw  these  punier  children  of  his  brain 
to  the  wolves,  because  of  the  really  formidable 
proportions  which  his  first-born  had  gradually 
attained.  To  a  recent  visitor  he  said,  plainly,  that 
he  was  the  author  of  one  book,  and  that  is  what  he 
will  remain  in  the  chronicle  of  literature.  His 
obstinate  determination  to  present  his  string  of 
scenes  as  a  whole,  in  spite  of  the  hopelessly  in- 
vertebrate character  of  the  design,  has  in  the  end 
led  to  a  sort  of  acceptation  of  "  Festus "  as  a 
definite  achievement. 


IV 

Of  attempts  to  "place"  the  author  of  "Festus" 
in  relation  to  other  authors,  the  earliest,  so  far  as  I 
am  able  to  discover,  was  that  made  by  Robert 
Chambers  in  1858.  This  careful  critic,  surveying 
the  literature  of  his  day,  observed  "a  group  of 
philosophical  poets — men  of  undoubted  talent, 
learning,  and  poetic  imagination,  but  too  often 


90  Portraits  and  Sketches 

obscure,  mystical,  and  extravagant."  This  group, 
he  explained,  consisted  of  P.  J.  Bailey,  Robert 
Browning,  and  Richard  Hengist  Home.  To-day 
the  differences  between  t(  Festus,"  "  Paracelsus," 
and  "  Orion  "  are  more  striking  than  the  similarities, 
but  Bailey  had  a  pronounced  admiration  for  both 
the  latter  poems.  For  the  Brownings  Mr.  Bailey 
preserved  an  enthusiastic  regard,  but  there  is  no 
trace  of  their  style  upon  his.1  In  fact,  we  look  in 
vain  for  contemporary  influences  in  "Festus"; 
Goethe  for  matter,  Milton,  Thomson,  and  Shelley 
for  manner,  were  Bailey's  masters,  and  occasionally 
he  was  faintly  touched  by  Byron.  It  will  be  found 
that  what  was  ultimately  discarded  from  "  Festus  " 
as  immature  is  in  the  main  Byronic.  The  prevailing 
Byronism  was  a  weed  which  he  uprooted  from  his 
poetic  garden,  as  Tennyson  and  Browning  are  said 
to  have  done  from  theirs. 

Mr.  Bailey's  interest  in  the  successive  generations 
which  he  saw  rise  up  and  pass  away  was  kindly  but 
fluctuating.  He  liked  a  gorgeous  texture  in  poetry, 
and  was  therefore  attracted  to  D.  G.  Rossetti  and 
much  later  to  Lord  de  Tabley.  About  1870-75 
he  indulged,  anonymously,  in  a  certain  amount  of 
reviewing,  and  said  very  kind  and  delicate  things 
about  some  of  the  poets  that  were  at  that  time 

1  Miss  F.  C.  Carey,  the  niece  and  constant  companion  of 
Mr.  Bailey,  tells  me  that  her  uncle  became  acquainted  with 
"  Paracelsus "  soon  after  the  publication  of  "  Festus,"  prob- 
ably in  1840,  as  the  gift  of  Westland  Marston.  This  disposes 
of  any  idea  of  the  influence  of  the  earlier  on  the  later  poem. 


Philip  James  Bailey  91 

making  their  first  bow  to  the  public.  But  more 
interesting  is  the  fact  that  in  the  fifties  he  was  taken 
as  a  model  by  a  group  of  writers  who  made  a  great 
stir  for  a  moment,  and  are  now  too  readily  forgotten. 
These  were  the  Spasmodists,  as  they  were  called, 
who  accepted  the  rather  formless  "Festus"  as 
the  pattern  for  huge  semi-dramatic  pieces  more 
amorphous  still ;  Alexander  Smith,  in  "  A  Life 
Drama"  (1853),  Sydney  Dobell,  in  "Balder"  (1854), 
and  John  Stanyan  Bigg,  in  "  Night  and  the  Soul  " 
(1854),  displayed  themselves  as  the  docile  and 
reverent  offspring  of  Bailey.  Why  the  influence 
of  "  Festus  "  suddenly,  after  so  many  years,  made 
its  appearance  thus  sown  broadcast  is  curious,  and 
curious  too  the  extravagance  of  these  imitations. 
Perhaps  no  one  ever  soared  and  sank  so  violently 
as  did  the  author  of  "Night  and  the  Soul."  Yet 
even  the  Spasmodists  had  merits,  which  might 
detain  a  critic,  but  here  they  are  interesting  to  us 
only  as  a  cluster  of  satellites  oddly  circling  round 
the  planet  of  "  Festus  "  in  its  mid-career. 

The  Spasmodists  imitated  Mr.  Bailey's  ecstasy, 
but  not  his  moral  earnestness  and  not  his  original 
strain  of  religious  philosophy.  His  was  a  mind  of 
greater  weight  and  fuller  body  than  theirs.  He  was 
often  redundant  and  sometimes  nebulous,  but  there 
was  always  something  definite  behind  the  coloured 
cloud.  His  occasional  excursions  into  prose  were 
not  fortunate,  for  his  style  was  awkward  and  heavy, 
and  he  liked  to  coin  impossible  words  :  he  says 
"  evilhood,"  for  instance,  although  even  he  seems 


92  Portraits  and  Sketches 

to  have  blenched  before  the  use  of  "  goodhood." 
His  prose  was  unattractive,  therefore,  but  it  is  worth 
examining,  because  it  reveals  the  intense  convictions 
which  led  the  writer  onward.  In  natural  tempera- 
ment, I  think,  Mr.  Bailey  was  timid,  but  in  his 
determination  to  thrust  his  message  on  the  world 
he  showed  an  absolute  courage  which  neither 
ridicule,  nor  argument,  nor  neglect  could  shake  in 
the  slightest  degree.  And  this  may  bring  us  to  a 
reflection  to  which  the  study  of  "  Festus "  must 
inevitably  lead,  namely,  that  in  this  his  single-minded 
earnestness  lay  the  secret  of  Mr.  Bailey's  reward. 
A  word  to  indicate  in  what  way  this  operated  must 
close  this  brief  study  of  his  work  and  character. 

With  a  curious  misuse  of  a  phrase  which  has 
become  almost  a  journalistic  cliche,  Bailey  has  been 
recently  called  a  "poet's  poet."  If  this  term  has 
a  meaning  at  all,  it  refers  to  the  quality  which 
makes  certain  writers,  whose  nature  leads  them  to 
peculiar  delicacy  of  workmanship,  favourites  with 
their  fellow-craftsmen,  although  little  comprehended 
by  the  vulgar.  Mr.  Bailey  was  the  exact  opposite 
of  these  poets.  There  was  nothing  in  his  work  to 
attract  students  of  what  is  exquisitely  put,  and,  as  a 
rule,  he  has  been  little  appreciated  by  these  rarer 
spirits.  His  form  is  so  plain  as  to  be  negligible  ;  it  is 
in  his  matter,  in  his  ethical  attitude,  that  he  is  found 
attractive  by  those — and  they  are  numerous — who 
in  several  generations  have  come  under  his  spell. 
"  Festus  "  appeals  to  the  non-literary  temperament, 
which  is  something  very  different  indeed  from 


Philip  James  Bailey  93 

saying  that  it  appeals  to  the  anti-literary.  Those 
who  love  it  appreciate  its  imagery,  its  large  music, 
its  spacious  landscape,  but  they  value  it  mainly  for 
its  teaching.  No  purely  esthetic  estimate  of  the 
poem  will  satisfy  those  who  reply,  "  Yes,  what  you 
say  is  technically  true,  no  doubt ;  but  it  has  helped 
and  comforted  me,  and  it  helps  me  still."  In  many 
a  distant  home,  in  America  even  oftener  than  in 
Great  Britain,  a  visit  to  some  invalid's  room  would 
reveal  the  presence  of  two  volumes  on  the  bed 
the  one  a  Bible,  the  other  "  Festus."  This  is  an 
element  in  the  popularity  of  Philip  James  Bailey 
which  criticism  is  powerless  to  analyse.  But  no 
consideration  of  his  remarkable  career  is  complete 
if  a  record  of  it  is  neglected. 

1902 


"ORION5     HORNE 

1802-1884 


"ORION'    HORNE 

THE  publication  of  the  love  letters  which  passed, 
in  1845  and  1846,  between  Robert  Browning  and 
Elizabeth  Barrett  blew  a  little  of  the  dust  off 
several  names  which  were  brightly  before  the 
public  then  and  have  become  sadly  obscured  since. 
The  two  learned  lovers  speak  of  Mr.  Serjeant 
Talfourd  and  of  his  incomparable  tragedy  of 
"  Ion,"  of  Sir  John  Hanmer  and  his  sonnets,  of 
the  terrible  criticisms  of  Chorley,  of  the  writings 
of  Abraham  Heraud  and  Silk  Buckingham  and 
Cornelius  Mathews.  These  are  faded  notorieties 
with  a  vengeance.  But  amongst  these  names, 
faintly  echoing  from  the  earliest  Victorian  period, 
we  meet  with  one  more  than  the  rest-  deserving 
of  perpetuation,  with  at  all  events  a  greater  mass 
of  actually  accomplished  work  attached  to  it,  the 
name  of  Mr.  Home,  the  author  of  "  Cosmo  de 
Medici,"  of  "Gregory  VII.,"  and,  above  all,  of 
"  the  farthing  epic,"  the  once  extremely  celebrated 
"Orion."  And  with  this  there  comes  vividly  back 
to  me  a  vision  of  an  extraordinary  personage,  of 
whom  I  saw  a  great  deal  in  my  youth,  and  of 
whom  I  feel  disposed  to  garner  some  of  my 
impressions  before  I  lose  them. 

G 


Portraits  and  Sketches 


He  had  been  baptized  Richard  Henry  Home, 
but  in  late  middle  life  he  had  changed  the  second 
of  these  names  to  Hengist.  It  was  in  1874  that 
I  set  eyes  on  him  first,  in  circumstances  which 
were  somewhat  remarkable.  The  occasion  was 
the  marriage  of  the  poet,  Arthur  O'Shaughnessy, 
to  the  eldest  daughter  of  Westland  Marston,  the 
playwright.  There  was  a  large  and  distinguished 
company  present,  and  most  of  the  prominent 
"  Pre-Raphaelites,"  as  they  were  still  occasionally 
called.  In  the  midst  of  the  subsequent  festivities, 
and  when  the  bride  was  surrounded  by  her  friends, 
a  tiny  old  gentleman  cleared  a  space  around  him, 
and,  all  uninvited,  began  to  sit  upon  the  floor  and 
sing,  in  a  funny  little  cracked  voice,  Spanish  songs 
to  his  own  accompaniment  on  the  guitar.  He  was 
very  unusual  in  appearance.  Although  he  was 
quite  bald  at  the  top  of  his  head,  his  milk-white  hair 
was  luxuriant  at  the  sides,  and  hung  in  clusters  of 
ringlets.  His  moustache  was  so  long  that  it 
became  whisker,  and  in  that  condition  drooped, 
also  in  creamy  ringlets,  below  his  chin.  The  elder 
guests  were  inclined  to  be  impatient,  the  younger 
to  ridicule  this  rather  tactless  interruption.  Just 
as  it  seemed  possible  something  awkward  would 
happen,  Robert  Browning  stepped  up  and  said,  in 
his  loud,  cheerful  voice :  "  That  was  charming, 
Home  1  It  quite  took  us  to  '  the  warm  South  ' 
again,"  and  cleverly  leading  the  old  gentleman's 
thoughts  to  a  different  topic,  he  put  an  end  to  the 
incident. 


"  Orion  "   Home  99 

This  scene  was  very  characteristic  of  Home,  who 
was  gay,  tactless,  and  vain  to  a  remarkable  degree. 
He  had  lately  come  back  from  Australia,  where 
nothing  had  gone  well  with  him  for  long  together, 
and  he  did  not  understand  the  ways  of  the  younger 
generation  in  London.  But  to  those  who  could  be 
patient  with  his  peculiarities  he  offered  a  very 
amusing  study.  He  had  delightful  stories,  many  of 
which  are  still  inedited,  of  the  great  men  of  his 
youth — Wordsworth,  Hunt,  Hazlitt,  in  particular. 
But  he  himself,  with  his  incredible  mixture  of  affec- 
tation and  fierceness,  humour  and  absurdity, 
enthusiasm  and  ignorance,  with  his  incoherency  of 
appearance,  at  once  so  effeminate  and  so  muscular, 
was  better  than  all  his  tales.  He  was  a  com- 
bination of  the  troubadour  and  the  prize-fighter,  on 
a  miniature  scale.  It  was  impossible  not  to  think 
of  a  curly  white  poodle  when  one  looked  at  him, 
especially  when  he  would  throw  his  fat  little  person 
on  a  sofa  and  roll  about,  with  gestures  less  dignified 
than  were,  perhaps,  ever  before  seen  in  a  poet  of 
between  seventy  and  eighty  years  of  age.  And  yet 
he  had  a  fine,  buoyant  spirit,  and  a  generous 
imagination  with  it  all.  But  the  oddity  of  it,  alas  ! 
is  what  lingers  in  the  memory — those  milky  ringlets, 
that  extraordinary  turn  of  the  head,  that  embrace 
of  the  beribboned  guitar  ! 

In  a  pathetic  little  letter  which  Home  wrote  to 
me  in  his  eightieth  year,  he  said,  quite  placidly,  that 
though  he  was  now  forgotten,  no  poet  had  ever  had 
more  pleasant  things  said  of  him  by  people  dead 


ioo  Portraits  and  Sketches 

and  gone.  It  was  perfectly  true.  Wordsworth  and 
Tennyson,  Leigh  Hunt  and  Walter  Savage  Landor, 
had  all  praised  his  poetry  ;  Carlyle  had  declared 
that  "the  fire  of  the  stars  was  in  him,"  and 
G.  H.  Lewes  that  he  was  "a  man  of  the  most 
unquestionable  genius."  How  highly  Robert  and 
Elizabeth  Browning  regarded  him  may  be  seen 
over  and  over  again  in  the  course  of  their  corre- 
spondence. But  his  talent  was  of  a  very  fugitive 
kind.  He  was  a  remarkable  poet  for  seven  or  eight 
years,  and  a  tiresome  and  uninspired  scribbler  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.  His  period  of  good  work  began 
in  1837,  when  he  published  "  Cosmo  de  Medici " 
and  "  The  Death  of  Marlowe  "  ;  it  closed  in  1843, 
with  the  publication  of  "Orion,"  and  the  composi- 
tion of  all  that  was  best  in  the  "  Ballad  Romances." 
If  any  one  wished  to  do  honour  to  the  manes  of 
poor  old  Home — and  in  these  days  far  less  distin- 
guished poets  than  he  receive  the  honours  of 
rediscovery — the  way  to  do  it  would  be  to  publish 
in  one  volume  the  very  best  of  his  writings,  and 
nothing  more.  The  badness  of  the  bulk  of  his 
later  verse  is  outside  all  calculation.  How  a  man 
who  had  once  written  so  well  as  he,  could  ever 
come  to  write,  for  instance,  "  Bible  Tragedies " 
(1881)  is  beyond  all  skill  of  the  literary  historian  to 
comprehend. 

But,  although  Home  was,  for  a  short  time,  a 
good  poet,  he  was  always  more  interesting  as  a 
human  being.  His  whole  life  was  an  adventure  ;  it 
was  like  a  "book  for  boys."  He  was  pleased  to 


"Orion"   Home  101 

relate  that  even  his  birth  was  not  ordinary,  for  he 
came  into  the  world  so  exactly  at  the  stroke  of 
midnight  on  the  last  day  of  the  year  that  it  could 
never  be  decided  whether  he  was  born  in  1802  or 
1803.  I  do  not  know  who  his  parents  were  or 
what  his  family.  In  the  days  when  I  saw  so  much 
of  him  he  appeared  to  be  quite  solitary  ;  he  never 
spoke  of  possessing  a  relative.  He  was  trained  for 
the  army,  and  lost  his  chance  through  some  foolish 
escapade.  But  before  this  he  had  been  at  school 
at  Enfield,  where  Tom  Keats,  the  poet's  brother, 
and  Charles  Wells,  who  wrote  "  Joseph  and  his 
Brethren,"  had  been  his  school-fellows.  He  used 
to  tell  us  in  his  old  age  that  he  was  once  scamper- 
ing out  of  school,  when  he  saw  the  chaise  of 
Mr.  Hammond,  the  surgeon,  standing  at  the  door. 
John  Keats,  who  was  Hammond's  apprentice,  was 
holding  the  horse,  his  head  sunken  forward  in  a 
brown  study  ;  the  boys,  who  knew  how  pugnacious 
Keats  was,  dared  Home  to  throw  a  snowball  at 
him,  which  Home  did,  hitting  Keats  in  'the  back  of 
the  head,  and  then  escaping  round  the  corner  at  a 
headlong  pace.  It  used  to  be  very  thrilling,  in  the 
eighties,  to  hear  the  old  gentleman  tell  how  he  had 
actually  snowballed  Keats ;  almost  as  though  one 
should  arise  and  say  that  he  had  sold  Shakespeare 
a  cheese-cake. 

Just  before  he  should  have  entered  Sandhurst  the 
young  Home  was  lured  away  to  America,  and 
offered  himself  as  a  volunteer  in  the  War  of 
Mexican  Independence.  He  entered  the  new  Mexi- 


IO2  Portraits  and  Sketches 

can  navy  as  a  midshipman,  and  dashed  about  under 
irregular  fire  at  the  bombardment  of  Vera  Cruz  and 
at  the  siege  of  San  Juan  Ulloa.  He  used  to  tell  us 
that  he  never  would  miss  his  swim  in  the  sea  in 
the  morning,  nor  return  to  the  ship  until  he  had 
been  well  within  range  of  the  guns  of  Vera  Cruz. 
The  Spaniards  could  never  hit  him,  he  said  ; 
but  one  day  when  he  was  making  a  long  nose 
at  the  gunners,  he  was  as  nearly  as  possible 
swallowed  from  behind  by  a  shark.  I  forget 
how  he  accounted  for  his  escape,  but  there  was 
always  a  good  deal  of  Baron  Munchausen  about 
Mr.  Home. 

When  the  Mexican  War  was  over,  he  strolled 
across  the  United  States,  with  a  belt  full  of  doubloons 
girded  about  his  person,  and  visited  the  Mohawks, 
the  Oneidas,  and  the  Hurons.  He  had  a  fight  with 
a  Red  Indian  brave  and  beat  him,  and  carried  away 
a  bunch  of  eagle-feathers  from  his  body.  After 
many  strange  adventures,  he  must  needs  bathe  in 
public  under  the  cataract  of  Niagara.  Two  of  his 
ribs  were  found  to  be  broken  when  he  was  fished 
cut  again,  insensible.  He  then  took  a  steerage 
passage  in  a  steamer  that  was  wrecked  in  the  St. 
Lawrence.  He  walked  in  moccasins  over  to  Hali- 
fax, Nova  Scotia,  and  started  again  in  a  timber 
ship,  whose  crew  rose  in  mutiny  and  set  fire  to  her 
in  mid-Atlantic  ;  Mr.  Home  quelled  the  mutiny  and 
put  out  the  fire,  to  the  eternal  gratitude  of  the 
captain,  who  fell  upon  his  knees  upon  the  deck  and 
kissed  his  hands.  I  delighted  in  Mr.  Home's  stories 


"Orion"   Home  103 

of  his  past  life,  but  sometimes  I  used  to  fear  that  he 
exaggerated. 

It  was  not  until  he  was  thirty  years  of  age  that 
Home  began  to  take  up  literature,  and  he  was 
thirty-five  when  he  enjoyed  his  first  success  with 
"Cosmo  de  Medici,"  an  historical  tragedy  in  blank 
verse,  which  has  some  very  fine  passages,  and  was 
greatly  admired  in  the  London  coteries.  Then  came 
the  period  of  seven  years,  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
in  which  Home  really  took  his  place,  with  Brown- 
ing and  Tennyson,  as  one  of  the  promising  poets  of 
the  age.  If  he  had  died  in  1844,  he  would  probably 
hold  a  high  place  still,  as  an  "  inheritor  of  unful- 
filled renown,"  but  unfortunately  he  lived  for  forty 
more  years,  and  never  discovered  that  his  talent 
had  abandoned  him.  His  "Orion,"  which  was 
published  in  1843,  was  brought  out  at  the  price  of 
one  farthing.  Elizabeth  Barrett  sent  out  to  the 
nearest  bookshop  for  a  shilling's  worth,  but  was 
refused  her  four  dozen  copies.  Purchasers  had  to 
produce  their  brass  farthing  for  each  "  Orion,"  and 
no  change  was  given.  This  was  done  "to  mark 
the  public  contempt  into  which  epic  poetry  has 
fallen,"  but  it  was  also  a  very  good  advertisement. 
Everybody  talked  about  Mr.  Home's  "farthing" 
poem,  and  after  some  editions  had  run  out  the 
price  was  cautiously  raised.  But  when  the  tenth 
edition  appeared,  at  a  cost  of  seven  shillings,  the 
public  perceived  that  its  leg  was  being  pulled,  and 
it  purchased  "  Orion "  no  more.  In  spite  of  all 
this,  "  Orion  "  is  far  indeed  from  being  a  humorous 


104  Portraits  and  Sketches 

composition  ;  it  is  a  dignified  and  melodious 
romance  of  Greek  symbolism,  with  some  remote 
relation  to  the  "  Hyperion  "  of  Keats,  and  contains 
some  admirable  passages. 

The  poets  of  the  opening  years  of  Queen  Victoria's 
reign  were  almost  all  of  them  tempted  to  write 
philosophical  poetry.  Robert  Browning  had  led  the 
way  with  "  Pauline  "  and  "  Paracelsus."  Bailey 
had  produced  "  Festus "  ;  Ragg,  the  lace-worker 
(now  forgotten),  had  made  a  temporary  mark  with 
"  The  Deity,"  a  formidable  essay ;  Miss  Barrett 
wrote  "  The  Drama  of  Exile  "  ;  there  were  the  lucu- 
brations of  John  Edmund  Reade.  None  of  these 
laborious  poems  could  be  styled  successful,  but  they 
all  were  interesting  in  their  curious  contemporary 
effort  to  reconcile  ideas  with  sensations,  on  a  grand 
scale.  These  writers  believed  that  unless  a  poem 
contained  a  philosophy  it  was,  on  the  whole,  a  poor 
affair.  Home  joined  the  band  of  the  philosophers 
when  he  wrote  "  Orion,"  which  is  perhaps,  as  a 
poem,  the  best  of  the  group.  His  mind  was  not 
disciplined,  but  he  always  had  a  curiosity  about  the 
literature  of  thought.  He  made  the  acquaintance, 
about  1841,  of  a  doctor  of  philosophy,  Dr.  Leonard 
Schmitz,  who  came  over  from  Bonn  to  introduce 
German  literature  to  English  readers.  Conversation 
with  Schmitz  set  Home's  thoughts  running  in  the 
direction  of  a  poem  which  should  re-establish  the 
union  which  had  existed  in  ancient  times  between 
philosophy  and  poetry,  before  analysis  stepped  in 
and  divorced  them.  The  effort  was  one  quite 


"Orion"  Home  105 

beyond  Home's  power  to  carry  out  successfully, 
but  he  wrote  what  is  by  no  means  the  worst  of 
modern  machines. 

This  is  the  poet's  explanation  of  his  "  spiritual 
epic,"  as  Elizabeth  Barrett  called  it,  as  it  appeared 
to  him  thirty  years  afterwards  : 

"  Orion,  the  hero  of  my  fable,  is  meant  to  present 
a  type  of  the  struggle  of  man  with  himself — that  is  to 
say,  the  contest  between  the  intellect  and  the  senses, 
when  powerful  energies  are  equally  balanced. 
Orion  is  man  standing  naked  before  Heaven  and 
Destiny,  resolved  to  work  as  a  really  free  agent  to 
the  utmost  pitch  of  his  powers  for  the  good  of  his 
race.  He  is  a  truly  practical  believer  in  his  gods 
and  in  his  own  conscience;  a  man  with  the 
strength  of  a  giant;  innocently  wise;  with  a  heart 
expanding  towards  the  largeness  and  warmth  of 
Nature,  and  a  spirit  unconsciously  aspiring  to  the 
stars.  He  is  a  dreamer  of  noble  dreams  and 
a  hunter  of  grand  shadows  (in  accordance  with 
the  ancient  symbolic  myth),  all  tending  to  healthy 
thought  or  to  practical  action  and  structure.  He  is 
the  type  of  a  Worker  and  a  Builder  for  his  fellow- 
men." 

There  is  in  this  commentary  a  touch  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Carlyle,  who  in  his  turn  perused  "  Orion  " 
with  marked  affability.  The  sage  of  Chelsea  had 
recently  published  "  Heroes  and  Hero-worship," 
which  had  no  warmer  admirer  than  Home.  "  Orion," 
then,  the  "farthing  epic,"  appeared  with  every 
circumstance  in  its  favour  and  enjoyed  a  very 


io6  Portraits  and  Sketches 

considerable  success.  Why  it  is  no  longer  read  it 
would  be  difficult  to  say.  Its  lustrous  descriptions 
of  primeval  giants  are  solemn  and  beautiful,  but 
unfortunately  the  memory  goes  back  to  "  Hyperion." 
Yet  this  is  unjust,  and  it  would  be  puzzling  to  define 
what  it  is  that  makes  so  very  careful  and  accom- 
plished a  work  not  any  longer  easy  to  read,  in  spite 
of  its  excellent  proportions,  moderate  length,  and 
indisputable  dignity.  The  "deliberate  opinion  "  of 
Edgar  Allan  Poe  was  that  "  in  all  that  regards  the 
loftiest  and  holiest  attributes  of  true  poetry  '  Orion ' 
has  never  been  excelled."  It  is  certainly  very  good  ; 
listen  : 

Ye  rocky  heights  of  Chios,  where  the  snow, 

Lit  by  the  far-off  and  receding  moon, 

Now  feels  the  soft  dawn1  s  purpling  twilight  creep 

Over  your  ridges,  while  the  mystic  dews 

Swarm  down  and  wait  to  be  instinct  with  gold 

And  solar  fire  ! — ye  mountains  waving  brown 

With  thick-winged  woods,  and  blotted  with  deep  caves 

In  secret  places ;  and  ye  paths  that  stray 

E'en  as  ye  list ;  what  odours  and  what  sighs 

Tend  your  sweet  silence  through  the  star-showered  night, 

Like  memories  breathing  of  the  Goddess-forms 

That  left  your  haunts,  yet  with  the  day  return. 

Excellent,  until  we  come  to  the  last  two  lines,  which 
are  invaded  by  that  curious  flatness  characteristic  of 
English  poetry  in  the  unfortunate  reign  of  King 
William  IV.  When  Douglas  Jerrold  said  that 
Home  had  "presented  an  undying  gift  to  the 


"Orion"  Home  107 

world"  in  "Orion,"  he  forgot  to  estimate  the 
element  of  decomposition  involved  in  the  language 
of  all  metrical  writers  between  Keats  and  Tennyson. 
Darley,  Wade,  Wells,  Bailey,  Heraud,  and  Beddoes 
— they  all  had  the  unfortunate  crack  in  the  voice 
which  made  them,  with  their  wealth  of  enthusiasm 
for  the  grand  style,  incapable  of  carrying  it  out 
without  incessant  lapses  into  mediocrity  of  expres- 
sion. And  Home,  to  use  a  vulgar  expression,  is 
tarred  with  the  same  William  IV.  brush.  Yet  there 
are  very  good  things  in  "  Orion,"  lines  such  as  : 

'Tis  always  morning  somewhere  in  the  world, 

and  passages  of  Greek  landscape,  of  which  this  is  by 
no  means  an  isolated  example  : 

since  the  breath  of  spring  had  stirred  the  woods, 
Through  which  the  joyous  tidings  busily  ran, 
And  oval  buds  of  delicate  pink  and  green 
Broke,  infant-like,  through  bark  of  sapling  boughs, — 
The  vapours  from  the  ocean  had  ascended, 
Fume  after  fume,  wreath  after  wreath,  and  floor 
Onjloor,  till  a  grey  curtain  upward  spread 
From  sea  to  sky,  and  both  as  one  appeared. 
Now  came  the  snorting  and  intolerant  steeds 
Of  the  Sun's  chariot  towards  the  summer  signs  ; 
At  first  obscurely,  then  with  dazzling  beams, 

and  so  on.  And,  as  some  one  has  said  of  Lamartine's 
efforts  in  the  same  kind,  there  is  throughout 
"  Orion,"  if  not  a  philosophy,  at  all  events  a  credit- 
able movement  of  philosophical  reflection. 

It  is  known  to  Apollo  only  what  varied  employ- 


io8  Portraits  and  Sketches 

ments  Home  took  up  when  the  Muses  began  to 
abandon  him.  He  was  sub-editor  of  Household 
Words  under  Dickens,  and  special  commissioner 
of  the  Daily  News  to  Ireland  when  the  great 
famine  broke  out.  Suddenly,  and  desperately  deter- 
mined to  marry,  he  went  down  to  stay  with  Miss 
Mitford  in  Berkshire,  and  proposed  to  all  the  neigh- 
bouring heiresses  one  after  another,  to  the  intense 
indignation  of  that  lady,  who  declared  that  he  had 
used  her  hospitable  dining-room,  on  the  same  day, 
to  propose  to  a  lady  (with  £50,000  a  year)  at  lunch, 
and  to  another  (with  £40,000  a  year)  at  tea.  None 
of  these  efforts  was  crowned  with  success  ;  perhaps 
he  had  the  presumption  to  be  in  love  with  Elizabeth 
Barrett,  whom  he  had  at  that  time  never  seen, 
although  oceans  of  correspondence  had  passed 
between  them.  At  all  events,  directly  Robert  Brown- 
ing had  carried  off  his  eminent  bride,  Home 
appeared  with  a  little  Miss  Foggs  upon  his  arm, 
whom  he  presently  married.  They  did  not  get  on 
together  ;  why  should  history  conceal  the  fact,  when 
Home  himself  was  wont  to  dilate  upon  it  so  freely 
to  his  friends  ?  Mrs.  Home,  in  tears,  threw  herself 
upon  the  paternal  sympathy  of  Charles  Dickens,  and 
Home  indignantly  sought  a  southern  hemisphere. 

In  Australia  he  was  commander  of  the  Gold 
Escort,  and  it  was  delightful,  years  afterwards,  to 
hear  him  tell  how  he  convoyed  several  tons  of 
bullion  from  Ballarat  to  Melbourne  amid  every 
circumstance  of  peril.  Then  he  became  Gold 
Commissioner  to  the  Government,  but  here  his 


"Orion"  Home  109 

flow  of  high  spirits  carried  him  away.  He 
then  flung  himself  into  the  cultivation  of  the 
cochineal  insect,  edited  a  Victorian  newspaper, 
became  Commissioner  of  Waterworks,  gave  lessons 
in  gymnastics,  professed  the  art  of  natation,  and 
was  one  of  the  starters  of  Australian  wine-growing. 
Long  afterwards,  when  the  first  Australian  cricketers 
came  over  to  England,  Home  wrote  to  me  :  "  I 
learn  that  the  cricketers  have  made  each  £1000  over 
here  !  Why,  oh  !  why  did  not  I  become  an 
Australian  cricketer,  instead  of  an  unprofitable 
swimmer  ?  When  years  no  longer  smiled  upon 
my  balls  and  runs,  I  might  have  retired  upon  my 
laurelled  bat,  and  have  published  tragedies  at  my 
own  expense.  Is  there  any  redress  for  these  things 
in  another  world  ?  I  don't  think  so ;  I  shall  be 
told  I  had  my  choice."  He  certainly  paid  his 
money.  No  one,  I  suppose,  ever  failed  in  so  many 
brilliant,  unusual  enterprises,  every  one  of  which 
was  sure  to  succeed  when  he  adopted  it. 

When  he  came  back  from  Australia,  I  think  about 
1869,  he  was  in  very  low  water.  He  had  managed 
very  deeply  to  offend  Charles  Dickens,  who  had 
taken  up  the  cause  of  Home's  neglected  wife. 
What  happened  to  Home  in  the  early  years  after 
his  return  I  never  heard ;  I  fancy  that  he  went 
abroad  again  for  some  part  of  the  time.  A  little 
later  Robert  Browning,  who  had  always  felt  a 
sincere  regard  for  Home,  was  able  to  be  of  practical 
service  to  him.  He  was  encouraged  to  republish 
his  poems,  and  to  appeal  by  means  of  them  to  the 


iio  Portraits  and  Sketches 

new  age.  In  these  days  one  used  to  meet  him  at 
afternoon  parties,  carrying  with  great  care,  under 
his  arm,  the  precious  guitar,  which  he  called  "my 
daughter,"  and  was  used  ceremoniously  to  introduce 
as  lt  Miss  Home."  A  little  later  in  the  evening 
Home  would  be  discovered  on  a  low  stool,  warbling 
Mexican  romances,  or  murmuring  with  exaggerated 
gallantry  to  the  prettiest  girl  in  the  room.  All  this 
time  he  was  thirsting  for  publicity — if  he  could  only 
be  engaged  to  sing  in  public,  to  box  in  public,  to 
swim  in  public,  how  happy  he  would  be  !  It  used 
to  be  said  that  when  he  was  nearly  seventy  Home 
persuaded  the  captain  of  a  ship  to  tie  his  legs 
together  and  fling  him  into  the  sea,  and  that  he 
swam  with  ease  to  the  boat.  A  wonderful  little 
ringleted  athlete,  no  doubt  ! 

A  great  deal  of  Home's  work  in  verse,  and  even 
in  prose,  remains  unpublished,  and  is  not  very 
likely,  I  should  think,  to  be  ever  printed.  As  I 
have  said,  his  faculty,  which  had  been  so  graceful, 
faded  away  from  him  about  forty  years  before  he 
died.  When  he  was  in  Australia  he  wrote  a 
good  deal,  among  other  things  a  choral  drama, 
"  Prometheus,  the  Fire-Bringer,"  which  was  actually 
composed  out  in  the  bush,  and  lost,  and  written  all 
over  again,  still  in  the  bush.  The  first  edition  of 
this  poem  is  styled  "by  Richard  Henry  Home," 
and  the  second,  which  followed  soon  after,  "  by 
Richard  Hengist  Home,"  showing  the  period  at 
which  he  adopted  the  more  barbaric  name.  I  have 
glanced  through  a  mass  of  Home's  manuscript, 


"  Orion  "  Home  1 1 1 

which  I  possess  (I  believe  that  Mr.  Buxton  Forman 
possesses  a  great  deal  more),  to  see  whether  I  can 
find  anything  unpublished  which  is  good  enough 
to  offer  to  the  readers  of  this  volume.  The  fol- 
lowing impromptu  is  at  least  brief ;  it  was  composed 
when  the  poet  was  in  his  seventy-eighth  year  : 

THE  SPRING-TIDE  OF  THE  BARDS 

Ah,  where  \s  the  Spring-tide  of  Poets  of  old, 

When  Chaucer  lov'd  April  and  all  her  sweet  showers, 

When  Spenser's  knights  felt  not  their  armour  strike  cold, 
Tho'  lost  in  wet  forests  or  dreaming  in  bowers  ? 

'Tis  afar  other  planet  to  us  in  this  season, 

And  Nature  must  own  we  complain  with  some  reason  ! 

For  north  winds,  and  east  winds,  and  yellow-fac'dfogs, 
And  thunders  and  lightnings  that  scare  buds  and  shoots, 

May  cheer  the  hoarse  chorus  of  cold-blooded  frogs, 
But  Man  craves  life 's  future ,  and  fears  for  its  fruits. 

Then  come  again,  Spring,  like  the  dear  songs  of  old, 

Where  the  crocus  smiled  daily  in  sunlight  and  gold. 

Home's  cheerfulness  was  a  very  pleasant  feature 
in  his  character.  Life  had  treated  him  scurvily, 
love  had  missed  him,  fame  had  come  down  and 
crowned  him,  and  then  had  rudely  snatched  the 
laurel  away.  If  ever  a  man  might  have  been 
excused  for  sourness,  it  was  Home.  But  he  was 
a  gallant  little  old  man,  and  if  it  was  impossible 
not  to  smile  at  him,  it  was  still  less  possible  not 
to  recognise  his  courage  and  his  spirit.  Curiously 
enough,  Elizabeth  Barrett,  who  carried  on  so  close 


112  Portraits  and  Sketches 

a  correspondence  with  Home  in  her  unmarried 
days,  but  who,  warned  by  Miss  Mitford,  never 
would  allow  him  to  call  upon  her  in  person,  had 
an  accurate  instinct  of  his  merits  and  his  weak- 
nesses, and  all  the  casual  remarks  about  Home 
which  she  makes  in  the  course  of  her  letters  to 
Robert  Browning  strike  one  who  knew  Home  well 
in  later  years  as  singularly  exact  and  perspicacious. 
His  edition  of  her  letters  to  him,  published  about 
twenty  years  ago  in  two  volumes,  is  becoming  a 
rare  book,  and  contains  many  things  of  remarkable 
interest  and  importance. 

It  was  from  1876  to  1879  that  we  saw  him  most 
frequently.  He  was  living  at  this  time  in  two 
rooms  in  Northumberland  Street,  Regent's  Park, 
in  very  great  poverty,  which  he  bore  with  the 
gayest  and  most  gallant  insouciance.  An  attempt 
was  made — indeed,  several  attempts  were  made — 
to  secure  for  him  a  little  pension  from  the  Civil 
List,  and  these  were  supported  by  Carlyle  and 
Browning,  Tennyson  and  Swinburne,  to  name  no 
smaller  fry.  But  all  in  vain  ;  for  some  reason, 
absolutely  inscrutable  to  me,  these  efforts  were 
of  no  avail.  It  was  darkly  said  that  there  were 
reasons  why  Mr.  Gladstone  would  never,  never 
yield ;  and  he  never  did.  When  Lord  Beaconsfield 
came  into  office,  he  granted  the  poor  little  old  man 
£50  a  year,  but  even  then  he  had  not  too  much 
food  to  eat  nor  clothes  to  keep  him  warm.  Still  he 
went  bravely  on,  shaking  his  white  ringlets  and 
consoling  himself  with  his  guitar.  He  was  fond 


"Orion"   Home  113 

of  mystery,  which  is  a  great  consoler.  For 
economy's  sake,  he  used  to  write  on  post-cards, 
but  always  with  a  great  deal  of  care,  so  that  the 
postman  should  be  none  the  wiser.  I  have  such  a 
post-card  before  me  now ;  it  is  an  answer  to 
a  proposal  of  mine  that  he  should  come  in  and 
take  dinner  with  us  : 

"Nov.  29,  1877. 

"  The  Sharpshooter's  friendly  shot  just  received. 
By  adroitly  porting  my  helm,  and  hauling  out  my 
flying  jib,  I  shall,  by  7  o'clock  this  evening,  be  able 
to  get  the  weather-gauge  of  the  Cape  I  was  bound 
for,  and  run  into  your  Terrace.  Thine. 

"  REEFER." 

Nothing,  surely,  could  be  more  discreet  than  that. 

To  the  very  last  he  was  anxious  to  regain  his  old 
place  as  a  man  of  letters,  and  his  persistency  was 
really  quite  pathetic.  One  did  not  know  what  to  do 
with  his  suggestions.  I  appeal  to  any  one  acquainted 
with  the  business  of  literature  whether  anything 
can  be  more  trying  than  to  receive  this  sort  of 
communication  : 

"  Don't  you  think  curiosity  might  be  aroused  if 

you  could  induce  the  editor  of  the to  print 

something  of  this  kind  :  'We  understand  that  a 
leading  periodical  will  shortly  contain  a  Dramatic 
Scene  by  the  Author  of  "  Orion,"  entitled  "The  Circle 
of  the  Regicides,"  in  which  such  interlocutors  as 
Dr.  Kobold,  Prof.  Franz  Tollkopf,  Hans  Arbeits- 
dulder,  and  Baron  Dumm  von  Ehrsucht  will  repre- 

H 


114  Portraits  and  Sketches 

sent  certain  well-known  characters.  There  will  also 
be  brought  upon  the  scene  the  Apparitions  of  Brutus, 
Cromwell,  the  patriot  Mazzini,  and  the  philan- 
thropist Robert  Owen ;  together  with  a  chorus  of 
French  and  Russian  revolutionists,  with  a  trio  and 
chorus  of  female  Regicides.'  On  second  thoughts, 
perhaps,  better  stop  after  'Owen.' ' 

It  was  difficult  to  bring  such  suggestions  as  these 
within  the  range  of  practical  literature. 

Home's  physical  strength  was  very  extraordinary 
in  old  age.  It  was  strangely  incompatible  with  the 
appearance  of  the  little  man,  with  his  ringleted  locks 
and  mincing  ways.  But  he  was  past  seventy  before 
he  ceased  to  challenge  powerful  young  swimmers  to 
feats  of  natation,  and  he  very  often  beat  them,  carrying 
off  from  them  cups  and  medals,  to  their  deep  disgust. 
He  was  nearly  eighty  when  he  filled  us,  one  evening, 
with  alarm  by  bending  our  drawing-room  poker  to 
an  angle  in  striking  it  upon  the  strained  muscles  of  his 
fore-arm.  He  was  very  vain  of  his  physical  accom- 
plishments, and  he  used  to  declare  that  he  was  in 
training  to  be  a  centenarian.  These  are  things  that 
should  never  be  said,  they  tempt  the  fates  ;  so  one 
day,  just  after  poor  Mr.  Home  had  been  boasting,  he 
was  knocked  down  by  a  van  in  Lisson  Grove,  and, 
although  he  rallied  in  a  wonderful  way,  he  was 
never  the  same  man  again.  Presently,  on  March  13, 
1884,  he  died  at  Margate,  whither  he  had  been 
removed  to  take  the  benefit  of  the  sea-air.  He  was 
in  his  eighty-second  year.  It  would  be  a  great  pity 
that  a  man  so  unique  and  so  picturesque  should  be 


"  Orion  "  Home  1 1 5 

forgotten.  As  long  as  the  world  is  interested  in 
Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  Home  can  never  be 
entirely  forgotten,  but  he  deserves  to  be  remembered 
for  his  own  sake. 


AUBREY    DE    VERE 
1814-1902 


AUBREY    DE    VERE 

ON  January  19,  1902,  there  passed  away  in  his  sleep 
the  most  venerable  of  the  then-living  poets  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  world.  There  is  an  old  house  in  County 
Limerick,  with  a  deer  park  round  it  and  a  lawn  that 
slopes  to  a  lake,  all  combining  to  form  one  of  the 
most  exquisite  estates  in  the  south  of  Ireland. 
There  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere  was  born  at  the  beginning 
of  1814,  and  there,  having  reached  his  eighty-ninth 
year,  he  died.  It  would  be  impossible  to  conceive 
a  more  gentle,  innocent,  or  delicate  life  than  his  was 
or  a  more  happy  one.  He  did  not  marry ;  he  con- 
secrated all  his  activities  to  the  service  of  literature, 
and  of  religion,  and  of  his  friends.  It  was  his 
singular  good  fortune  to  be  protected  from  every 
species  of  care  or  anxiety.  He  was  not  rich,  yet 
he  had  the  ease  and  dignity  of  circumstance 
which  make  it  possible  to  concentrate  the  mind 
on  higher  thoughts  than  surround  our  daily  bread. 
He  was  not  poor,  and  yet  he  was  screened  by 
conditions  from  all  that  makes  the  possession  of 
wealth  disturbing  and  hardening.  Mr.  Aubrey  de 
Vere  was  more  fortunate  than  the  farm-folk  in 
Virgil,  for  he  knew  that  he  was  happy.  In  the 


I2O  Portraits  and  Sketches 

moderation  of  his  desires,  in  the  resigning  of  all 
vain  ambitions,  he  was  as  wise  as  he  was  pure  and 
good. 

Among  my  treasures  I  possess  a  copy  of  the 
"  Sonnets "  of  his  father,  Sir  Aubrey  de  Vere,  pre- 
sented to  me  by  the  son,  as  a  kind  inscription  sets 
forth,  in  the  year  1869.  For  the  guidance  of  posterity, 
however,  I  have  to  say  that  I  was  not  acquainted 
with  Mr.  de  Vere  at  so  tender  an  age  as  this  would 
seem  to  imply.  By  one  of  those  slips  of  the  pen 
which  we  all  make,  but  which  in  old  age  we  forget 
to  amend,  Mr.  de  Vere  wrote  1869  when  he  meant 
1896.  It  was,  in  fact,  not  until  the  latter  year  that  I 
had  the  privilege  of  forming  an  acquaintance  which 
he  allowed  to  ripen  into  something  like  a  friendship. 
I  met  him  early  in  1896,  by  special  arrangement  and 
in  conditions  singularly  delightful,  at  the  house  of 
an  Irish  lady  who  is  devoted  to  literature.  The  poet 
was  already  in  his  eighty-third  year,  and  my  recollec- 
tions, therefore,  are  of  a  very  old  man.  But  they 
are  by  no  means  of  an  infirm  or  senile  man.  The 
mental  freshness  and  buoyancy  of  his  mind  con- 
tinued, I  suppose — for  I  did  not  see  him  for  several 
months  before  his  death — almost,  if  not  quite,  to  the 
end.  They  certainly  survived,  with  no  symptom  of 
decay,  until  long  after  1896.  His  letters,  which 
were  filled  with  the  enthusiastic  love  of  poetry,  con- 
tinued to  breathe  the  loftiest  intellectual  ardour 
even  when  the  implacable  years  had  so  shaken  the 
hand  that  it  became  difficult  to  read  what  was 
written.  This  beautiful  elasticity  of  spirit  was 


Aubrey  de  Vere  121 

perhaps  the  most  surprising  feature  in  the  wonderful 
old  age  of  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere. 

His  appearance  at  about  the  age  of  eighty-three  is 
very  vivid  in  my  recollection.  He  entered  the  room 
swiftly  and  gracefully,  the  front  of  his  body  thrown 
a  little  forward,  as  is  frequently  the  case  with  tall  and 
active  old  men.  His  countenance  bore  a  singular 
resemblance  to  the  portraits  of  Wordsworth, although 
the  type  was  softer  and  less  vigorous.  His  forehead, 
which  sloped  a  little  and  was  very  high  and  domed, 
was  much  observed  in  the  open  air  from  a  trick  he 
had  of  tilting  his  tall  hat  back.  I  used  to  think, 
very  profanely,  that  in  profile,  on  these  occasions, 
he  bore  a  quite  absurdly  close  resemblance  to  the 
Hatter  in  "  Alice's  Adventures,"  especially  when,  as 
was  frequently  the  case,  he  recited  poetry.  I  am 
sure  that  any  open-minded  person  who  recollects 
Mr.  de  Vere  will  admit  that  Sir  John  Tenniel's  im- 
mortal drawing  of  the  Hatter  repeating  "  Twinkle, 
twinkle,  little  bat  !"  is  irresistibly  reminiscent  of  our 
revered  friend.  In  spite  of  this  there  was  something 
extraordinarily  delicate  and  elevated  in  his  address. 
He  was,  in  fact,  conversation  made  visible.  I  never 
knew  a  more  persistent  speaker.  If  he  broke  bread 
with  one,  the  progress  of  the  meal  would  be  inter- 
rupted and  delayed  from  the  very  first  by  his  talk, 
which  was  softly,  gently  unbroken,  like  a  fountain 
falling  upon  mosses.  On  one  occasion,  when  we  sat 
together  in  a  garden  in  the  summer,  Mr.  de  Vere 
talked,  with  no  other  interruption  than  brief  pauses 
for  reflection,  for  three  hours,  in  itself  a  prodigious 


122  Portraits  and  Sketches 

feat  for  an  old  man'  of  eighty-five,  and  without  the 
smallest  sign  of  fatigue. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  occasionally  used  what 
are  called  "  strong  expressions  " — with  a  little  playful 
affectation,  I  used  to  think,  of  the  man  of  the  world 
— Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere  had  an  ecclesiastical  air, 
like  that  of  some  highly  cultivated,  imaginative  old 
abbe.  He  possessed  a  sort  of  distinguished  inno- 
cence, a  maidenly  vivacious  brightness,  very  charm- 
ing and  surprising.  He  once  remarked  to  me  that 
the  feminine  characteristics  of  Newman  were  always 
recurring  to  his  memory,  that  as  he  looked  back 
upon  the  early  Oxford  days  he  continually  had  the 
impression  in  Newman  of  "  a  kind  of  virginal 
remoteness  mingled  with  extremely  tender  grace." 
When  he  said  this  I  could  not  help  feeling  that 
although  there  was  no  "  remoteness  "  about  Mr.  de 
Vere,  there  was  something  of  the  same  feminine 
grace. 

The  principal,  indeed  perhaps  the  only,  sign  of 
advanced  old  age  which  the  poet  presented  until 
near  his  end  was  the  weakness  of  his  voice.  This 
must  have  once  been,  I  think,  very  melodious,  but 
already  when  I  knew  him  first  it  had  become  so 
faint  as  to  be  sometimes  scarcely  audible,  particularly 
in  company.  It  was  therefore  most  pleasant  to  be 
alone  with  him,  especially  in  the  open  air,  where  he 
seemed  to  speak  with  particular  freedom  and  ease. 
The  astonishing  fullness  of  his  memory  made  his 
conversation  marvellous  and  delightful.  He  not 
merely  passed,  with  complete  comprehension  of  the 


Aubrey  de  Vere  123 

relative  distance,  from  events  of  1820  to  events  of  to- 
day, but  his  verbal  memory  was  astounding.  He 
garnished  his  recollections  of  Wordsworth,  Rogers, 
Landor,  or  Sir  Henry  Taylor  with  copious  and 
repeated  quotations  from  their  poetry.  Indeed,  he 
once  assured  me  that  of  certain  favourite  poets — in 
particular  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  and  Keats — he  still 
retained,  at  the  age  of  eighty-four,  "  substantially 
the  bulk  of  their  writings."  He  said  that  his  principal 
occupation  had  been  and  still  was,  in  his  solitary 
walks  or  by  the  fire,  to  repeat,  silently  or  aloud, 
pages  after  pages  of  poetry.  His  memory  of  the 
great  writers  was,  he  believed,  so  exact  that  in  these 
exercises  he  had  the  illusion  that  he  was  reading  from 
the  printed  book. 

The  friends  of  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere  were  so  well 
versed  in  the  stores  of  his  memory  that  they  antici- 
pated an  immense  pleasure  from  his  "  Recollections," 
which  he  published  in  1897.  This  was  a  charming 
book  in  many  ways,  but  it  was  in  some  degree  a  dis- 
appointment. It  was  in  no  sense  what  we  had 
hoped  it  would  be,  an  autobiography  ;  it  recalled  a 
variety  of  incidents  and  places  which  had  interested 
the  writer,  yet  it  told  but  little  of  what  had  moved 
him  most.  The  inherent  delicacy  and  shyness  of  the 
author  spoiled  the  effect.  "  Self,"  he  said,  "  is  a 
dangerous  personage  to  let  into  one's  book,"  but 
unfortunately,  without  it  an  autobiography  is 
"  Hamlet "  with  the  part  of  the  Prince  of  Denmark 
omitted.  There  is  much  in  Aubrey  de  Vere's 
"Recollections"  which  is  delightful,  but  those  who 


124  Portraits  and  Sketches 

enjoyed  his  conversation  miss  in  the  published  book 
a  great  deal  that  they  recall  as  particularly  original 
and  delightful.  For  instance,  I  once  asked  Mr.  de 
Vere  who,  among  all  the  great  souls  he  had  known, 
had  impressed  him  the  most.  He  said  instantly, 
"  Wordsworth  and  Newman  ;  they  are  the  two  for 
whom  my  love  has  been  most  like  idolatry."  There 
were  precious  pages  about  Newman  in  the  "Recollec- 
tions," but  the  great  disappointment  of  that  book 
was  the  comparative  absence  of  any  salient  notes 
about  Wordsworth.  I  think  Mr.  de  Vere  felt  the 
subject  too  sacred  for  public  annotation,  and  yet  in 
personal  talk  he  was  always  ready  to  return  to  it. 
His  loyalty  to  Wordsworth  was  a  passion.  In  the 
very  latest  letter  which  I  received  from  him,  in  a 
hand  so  flickering  that  it  is  hard  to  decipher,  he  says : 
"  Old  Christopher  North  was  the  first,  except  Leigh 
Hunt,  who  plucked  up  heart  of  grace,  'wrote  all  like 
a  man/  and  so  forced  the  public  at  last  to  read 
Wordsworth.  He  said  so  often  and  so  loudly — 
what  St.  Augustine  had  said  to  the  pagan  world — 
'  So  read  these  things  that  you  may  deserve  to  under- 
stand them,'  that  at  last  a  large  part  of  that  world 
did  come  to  understand  that  the  greatest  of  the 
philosophic  poets  was  even  then  living  in  their 
midst."  Is  it  not  an  enviable  gift  still  to  be  able  to 
care  so  much  about  poetry  and  philosophy  as  the 
ninetieth  year  approaches  ? 

Many  notes  which  his  friends  had  taken  of  Mr. 
de  Vere's  conversations  were  rendered  nugatory  by 
the  publication  of  his  book ;  some,  however,  have 


Aubrey  de  Vere  125 

still  their  value.  He  toned  down  in  publication,  for 
instance,  the  impression  of  his  seeing  Newman  for 
the  first  time  in  1838,  and  his  spoken  words,  which 
I  noted  in  1896,  were  much  more  vivid.  I  had  asked 
him  to  tell  me  how  the  future  cardinal  struck  him. 
He  was  silent  for  a  moment  and  then  replied,  with 
a  light  in  his  blue  eyes,  "  The  emotion  of  seeing  him 
for  the  first  time  was  one  of  the  greatest  in  my  life. 
I  shall  never  forget  his  appearance.  I  had  been 
waiting  some  time  and  then  the  door  opened  and 
Newman,  in  cap  and  gown,  entered  very  swiftly  and 
quietly,  with  a  kind  of  balance  of  the  figure  like  a 
very  great  lady  sweeping  into  the  room.  That  was 
my  first  impression  ;  the  second  was  of  a  high-bred 
young  monk  of  the  Middle  Ages  whose  asceticism 
cannot  quite  conceal  his  distinguished  elegance." 
Another  unpublished  impression  of  Oxford  deserves 
to  be  recorded.  Mr.  de  Vere  went  to  hear  Newman 
preach  his  famous  sermon  on  Vain  Works.  He  was 
a  little  late,  and  as  he  took  a  remote  seat  he  thought 
with  annoyance  that  he  should  not  hear  anything. 
But  he  heard  every  syllable ;  Newman's  voice  was 
musical,  but  very  low,  yet  every  word  told.  Mr.  de 
Vere  observed  to  himself  on  this  occasion  that  it 
seemed  as  though  Newman's  thought  was  so  clear 
that  it  was  impossible  not  to  perceive  the  impression 
of  it.  You  seemed  less  to  be  hearing  him  speak 
than  think.  Innumerable  links,  such  as  these,  with 
the  past  were  broken  by  the  death  of  this  beloved 
and  venerated  man. 


A    FIRST    SIGHT    OF 

TENNYSON 


A    FIRST    SIGHT    OF 

TENNYSON 

THERE  is  a  reaction  in  the  popular  feeling  about 
Tennyson,  and  I  am  told  that  upon  the  young  he 
has  lost  his  hold,  which  was  like  that  of  an  octopus 
upon  us  in  my  salad  days.  These  revolutions  in 
taste  do  not  trouble  me  much  ;  they  are  inevitable 
and  they  are  not  final.  But  those  who  "  cannot 
read  "  "  Maud  "  and  "  In  Memoriam  "  to-day  must 
take  it  on  the  word  of  a  veteran  that  forty  years  ago 
we,  equally,  could  not  help  reading  them.  There 
was  a  revolt  against  the  tyranny  now  and  then  ;  in 
particular,  after  "  The  Loves  of  the  Wrens "  and 
'  Enoch  Arden "  a  rather  serious  mutiny  broke 
out  among  Tennyson's  admirers,  but  "  Lucretius  " 
appeared  and  they  were  enslaved  again. 

It  is  strange  to  look  back  upon  the  unrestrained 
panegyric  which  took  the  place  of  the  higher  criticism 
of  Tennyson  in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  When  a  very  clever  man  like  the  late  Duke 
of  Argyll,  a  man  of  sober  years,  could  say,  without 
being  reproached,  that  Tennyson's  blank  verse  in  the 
"  Idylls  "  was  sweeter  and  stronger  than  "  the  stately 
march  of  Elizabethan  English  in  its  golden  prime"  ; 

J 


130  Portraits  and  Sketches 

when  Mr.  Gladstone  could  declare  of  Arthur  in 
the  same  "  Idylls  "  that  he  "  knew  not  where  to  look 
in  history  or  letters  for  a  nobler  or  more  over- 
powering conception  of  man  as  he  might  be,"  then 
a  reaction,  however  tenderly  delayed,  was  inevit- 
able. The  uncritical  note  of  praise  is  almost  more 
surely  hurtful  to  a  reputation  than  the  uncritical 
note  of  blame,  for  it  makes  a  wound  that  it  is  much 
harder  to  heal.  Tennyson  is  now  suffering  from 
the  extravagant  obsequiousness  of  his  late  Victorian 
admirers.  At  the  moment  of  which  I  am  about  to 
speak,  Tennyson  had  published  nothing  since  "  The 
Holy  Grail,"  and  it  was  understood  that  he  was 
slightly  startled  by  the  arrival  of  Swinburne,  Morris, 
and  the  Rossettis  on  a  stage  which  he,  with  Robert 
Browning  still  very  much  in  the  background,  had 
hitherto  sufficiently  filled.  But  the  vogue  of  these 
new-comers  was  confined  to  the  elect.  In  the  world 
at  large  Tennyson  was  the  English  living  poet  par 
excellence,  great  by  land  and  great  by  sea,  the  one 
survivor  of  the  heroic  chain  of  masters. 

It  was  the  early  summer  of  1871,  and  I  was 
palely  baking,  like  a  crumpet,  in  a  singularly 
horrible  underground  cage,  made  of  steel  bars, 
called  the  Den.  This  was  a  place  such  as  no 
responsible  being  is  allowed  to  live  in  nowadays, 
where  the  transcribers  on  the  British  Museum  staff 
were  immured  in  a  half-light.  This  cellar  was 
prominently  brought  forward  a  year  or  two  later  in 
the  course  of  a  Royal  Commission  on  the  British 
Museum,  being  "lifted  into  notice"  only  to  be 


A  First  Sight  of  Tennyson         131 

absolutely  condemned  by  the  indignation  of  the 
medical  faculty.  I  was  dolefully  engaged  here, 
being  then  one  of  the  humblest  of  mankind,  a 
Junior  Assistant  in  the  Printed  Books  Department 
of  the  British  Museum,  on  some  squalid  task,  in 
what  was  afterwards  described  by  a  witness  as  an 
atmosphere  "scented  with  rotten  morocco,  and  an 
indescribable  odour  familiar  in  foreign  barracks," 
when  a  Senior  Assistant,  one  of  the  rare  just  spirits 
in  that  academical  Dotheboys  Hall,  W.  R.  S. 
Ralston,  came  dashing  down  the  flights  of  curling 
steel  staircase,  to  the  danger  of  his  six  feet  six  of 
height,  and  of  the  beard  that  waved  down  to  his 
waist.  Over  me  he  bent,  and  in  a  whisper  (we  were 
forbidden  to  speak  out  loud  in  the  Den)  he  said, 
"  Come  up  stairs  at  once  and  be  presented  to 
Mr.  Tennyson  ! " 

Proud  young  spirits  of  the  present  day,  for  whom 
life  opens  in  adulation,  will  find  it  scarcely  possible 
to  realise  what  such  a  summons  meant  to  me.  As 
we  climbed  those  steep  and  spiral  staircases  towards 
light  and  day,  my  heart  pounded  in  my  chest  with 
agitation.  The  feeling  of  excitement  was  almost 
overwhelming  :  it  was  not  peculiar  to  myself ;  such 
ardours  were  common  in  those  years.  Some  day  a 
philosopher  must  analyse  it — that  enthusiasm  of  the 
seventies,  that  intoxicating  belief  in  "the  might  of 
poesy."  Tennyson  was  scarcely  a  human  being  to 
us,  he  was  the  God  of  the  Golden  Bow ;  I 
approached  him  now  like  a  blank  idiot  about  to  be 
slain,  "  or  was  I  a  worm,  too  low-crawling  for  death, 


132  Portraits  and  Sketches 

O  Delphic  Apollo  ? "  It  is  not  merely  that  no 
person  living  now  calls  forth  that  kind  of  devotion, 
but  the  sentiment  of  mystery  has  disappeared. 
Not  genius  itself  could  survive  the  kodak  snapshots 
and  the  halfpenny  newspapers. 

It  must,  I  suppose,  have  been  one  of  those  days 
on  which  the  public  was  then  excluded,  since  we 
found  Tennyson,  with  a  single  companion,  alone 
in  what  was  then  the  long  First  Sculpture  Gallery. 
His  friend  was  James  Spedding,  at  whom  in  other 
conditions  I  should  have  gazed  with  interest,  but  in 
the  Delphic  presence  he  was  not  visible  to  my 
dazzled  eyes.  Mr.  Thornycroft's  statue  of  the  poet, 
now  placed  in  Trinity  College,  gives  an  admirable 
impression  of  him  at  a  slightly  later  date  than  1871, 
if  (that  is)  it  is  translated  out  of  terms  of  white 
into  terms  of  black.  Tennyson,  at  that  time,  was 
still  one  of  the  darkest  of  men,  as  he  is  familiarly 
seen  in  all  his  earlier  portraits.  But  those  portraits 
do  not  give,  although  Mr.  Thornycroft  has  suggested, 
the  singular  majesty  of  his  figure,  standing  in  repose. 
Ralston,  for  all  his  six  feet  six,  seemed  to  dwindle 
before  this  magnificent  presence,  while  Tennyson 
stood,  bare-headed  among  the  Roman  Emperors, 
every  inch  as  imperial-looking  as  the  best  of  them. 
He  stood  there  as  we  approached  him,  very  still, 
with  slightly  drooping  eyelids,  and  made  no  move- 
ment, no  gesture  of  approach.  When  I  had  been 
presented,  and  had  shaken  his  hand,  he  continued 
tc  consider  me  in  a  silence  which  would  have 
been  deeply  disconcerting  if  it  had  not,  somehow, 


A  First  Sight  of  Tennyson         133 

seemed  kindly,  and  even,  absurd  as  it  sounds, 
rather  shy. 

The  stillness  was  broken  by  Ralston's  irrelevantly 
mentioning  that  I  was  presently  to  start  for  Norway. 
The  bard  then  began  to  talk  about  that  country, 
which  I  was  surprised  to  find  he  had  visited  some 
dozen  years  before.  Ralston  kindly  engaged 
Spedding  in  conversation,  so  that  Tennyson  might 
now  apply  himself  to  me  ;  with  infinite  goodness  he 
did  so,  even  "  making  conversation,"  for  I  was  hope- 
lessly tongue-tied,  and  must,  in  fact,  have  cut  a  very 
poor  figure.  Tennyson,  it  miraculously  appeared, 
had  read  some  of  my  stammering  verses,  and  was 
vaguely  gracious  about  them.  He  seemed  to  accept 
me  as  a  sheep  in  the  fold  of  which  he  was,  so 
magnificently,  the  shepherd.  This  completed  my 
undoing,  but  he  did  not  demand  from  me  speech. 
He  returned  to  the  subject  of  Norway,  and  said  it 
was  not  the  country  for  him  to  travel  in,  since  you 
could  only  travel  in  it  in  funny  little  round  carts, 
called  karjols,  which  you  must  drive  yourself,  and 
that  he  was  far  too  near-sighted  for  that.  (I  had 
instantly  wondered  at  his  double  glasses,  of  a  kind 
I  had  never  seen  before.) 

Then  somebody  suggested  that  we  should  examine 
the  works  of  art,  which,  in  that  solitude,  we  could 
delightfully  do.  Tennyson  led  us,  and  we  stopped 
at  any  sculpture  which  attracted  his  notice.  But 
the  only  remark  which  my  memory  has  retained 
was  made  before  the  famous  black  bust  of  Antinous. 
Tennyson  bent  forward  a  little,  and  said,  in  his  deep, 


134  Portraits  and  Sketches 

slow  voice,  "Ah  !  this  is  the  inscrutable  Bithynian  !  " 
There  was  a  pause,  and  then  he  added,  gazing  into 
the  eyes  of  the  bust  :  "  If  we  knew  what  he  knew, 
we  should  understand  the  ancient  world."  If  I  live 
to  be  a  hundred  years  old,  I  shall  still  hear  his  rich 
tones  as  he  said  this,  without  emphasis,  without 
affectation,  as  though  he  were  speaking  to  himself. 
And  soon  after,  the  gates  of  heaven  were  closed, 
and  I  went  down  three  flights  of  stairs  to  my  hell  of 
rotten  morocco. 


A    VISIT    TO    WHITTIER 


A    VISIT    TO    WHITTIER 

WHEN  I  was  in  Boston  in  1884,  my  brilliant  and 
hospitable  friend  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells  received  a 
letter  from  the  poet  Whittier,  expressing  a  most 
kind  wish  that  I  should  visit  him.  It  would  have 
been  a  great  satisfaction  to  me  to  have  seen  him  in 
summer,  and  in  his  own  beautiful  home  at  Amesbury, 
where  he  settled  in  1836,  and  where  he  resided  until 
his  death  in  1892,  although  at  the  moment  of  his 
demise  he  happened  to  be  visiting  a  friend  at  Horton 
Falls.  It  would  have  been  delightful  to  carry  away 
an  impression  of  that  noble,  calm  figure  in  the  midst 
of  its  household  gods.  But,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
the  mansion  at  Amesbury  was  at  that -time  being 
altered  in  some  way  ;  at  all  events,  Mr.  Whittier  was 
staying  with  female  relations  at  a  house,  called  Oak 
Knoll,  near  the  town  of  Danvers.  It  was,  moreover, 
in  the  depth  of  the  hard  New  England  winter  ;  all  the 
landscape  was  choked  with  snow.  Certainly,  the 
visitor's  attention  would  be  the  more  exclusively 
concentrated  on  the  appearance  and  conversation 
of  his  celebrated  host.  Accordingly,  an  appoint- 
ment was  made,  and  on  December  6  I  set  forth  on 
quite  an  arctic  expedition  to  discover  the  author  of 
"Snow  Bound." 


138  Portraits  and  Sketches 

I  have  a  superstition  that  all  very  agreeable 
adventures  begin  with  a  slight  mishap.  I  was  not 
prepared  to  believe  Mr.  Whittier  so  difficult  to 
reach  as  I  found  him.  We  arrived  early  at  the 
dismal  railway  station  of  Danvers,  and  a  hack  was 
persuaded  to  drive  us  to  the  entrance  of  Oak 
Knoll.  All  this  Massachusetts  landscape,  doubtless 
enchanting  at  other  times  of  the  year,  is  of  a  most 
forbidding  bleakness  in  midwinter.  The  carriage 
deposited  us  and  drove  off,  leaving  us  to  struggle 
up  to  the  homestead,  and  we  arrived  with  relief 
under  the  great  pillars  of  an  ample  piazza.  Perhaps, 
in  leafy  seasons,  Oak  Knoll  may  have  its  charms, 
but  it  was  distinctly  sinister  that  December  morning. 

We  rang,  and  after  a  long  pause  the  front  door 
opened  slightly,  and  a  very  unprepossessing  dog 
emerged,  and  shut  the  door  (if  I  may  say  so)  behind 
him.  We  were  face  to  face  with  this  animal,  which 
presented  none  of  the  features  identified  in  one's 
mind  with  the  idea  of  Mr.  Whittier.  It  sniffed  un- 
pleasantly, but  we  spoke  to  it  most  blandly,  and  it 
became  assured  that  we  were  not  tramps.  The  dog 
sat  down  and  looked  at  us  ;  we  had  nowhere  to  sit 
down,  but  we  looked  at  the  dog.  Then,  after  many 
blandishments,  but  feeling  very  uncomfortable,  I 
ventured  to  hold  the  dog  in  conversation,  while  I 
rang  again.  After  another  pause,  the  door  was  very 
slightly  opened,  and  a  voice  of  no  agreeable  timbre 
asked  what  we  wanted.  We  explained,  across  the 
dog,  that  we  had  come  by  appointment  to  see  Mr. 
Whittier.  The  door  was  closed  a  second  time,  and, 


A  Visit  to  Whittier  139 

if  our  carriage  had  still  been  waiting,  we  should 
certainly  have  driven  back  to  Danvers.  But  at 
length  a  hard-featured  woman  grudgingly  admitted 
us,  and  showed  us,  growling  as  she  did  it,  into  a 
parlour. 

Our  troubles  were  then  over,  for  Mr.  Whittier 
himself  appeared,  with  all  that  report  had  ever  told 
of  gentle  sweetness  and  dignified,  cordial  courtesy. 
He  was  then  seventy-seven  years  old,  and,  although 
he  spoke  of  age  and  feebleness,  he  showed  few  signs 
of  either  ;  he  was,  in  fact,  to  live  eight  years  more. 
Perhaps  because  the  room  was  low,  he  seemed 
surprisingly  tall ;  he  must,  in  fact,  have  been  a 
little  less  than  six  feet  high.  The  peculiarity  of  his 
face  rested  in  the  extraordinarily  large  and  luminous 
black  eyes,  set  in  black  eyebrows,  and  fringed  with 
thick  black  eyelashes  curiously  curved  inwards. 
This  bar  of  vivid  black  across  the  countenance  was 
startlingly  contrasted  with  the  bushy  snow-white 
beard  and  hair,  offering  a  sort  of  contradiction 
which  was  surprising  and  presently  pleasing.  He 
was  careful  to  keep  on  my  right  side,  I  noticed, 
being  presumably  deaf  in  the  right  ear  ;  even  if  this 
were  the  case,  which  he  concealed,  his  hearing 
continued  to  be  markedly  quick  in  a  man  of  his 
years. 

His  generosity  to  those  much  younger  and  less 
gifted  than  himself  is  well  known,  and  I  shall  not 
dwell  on  the  good-natured  things  which  he 
proceeded  to  say  to  his  English  visitor.  He  made 
no  profession  at  any  time  of  being  a  critic,  and  his 


140  Portraits  and  Sketches 

formula  was  that  such  and  such  verse  or  prose  had 
given  him  pleasure — "  I  am  grateful  to  thee  for 
all  that  enjoyment,"  was  his  charming  way  of  being 
kind.  But  I  will  mention  what  he  said  about  one 
book,  the  "  Life  of  Gray,"  because  I  do  not  remem- 
ber that  Gray  is  mentioned  in  any  of  the  published 
works  of  Whittier.  He  said  that  he  had  delighted  in 
that  narrative  of  a  life  so  quiet  and  so  sequestered 
that,  as  he  put  it,  it  was  almost  more  "  Quakerly " 
than  that  of  any  famous  member  of  the  Society  ; 
and  he  added  that  he  had  been  greatly  moved 
by  the  fullness  and  the  significance  of  a  career 
which  to  the  outside  world  might  have  seemed 
absolutely  without  movement.  "  Thee  were  very 
fortunate,"  he  went  on,  "  to  have  that  beautiful, 
restful  story  left  to  tell  after  almost  all  the  histories 
of  great  men  had  been  made  so  fully  known  to 
readers." 

He  asked  me  what  and  whom  I  had  seen.  Had 
I  yet  visited  Concord  ?  I  responded  that  I  was 
immediately  about  to  do  so,  and  then  he  said 
quickly,  "Ah!  thee  should  have  come  a  little 
sooner,  when  we  were  still  united.  There  were 
four  of  us  a  little  while  ago,  but  two  are  gone,  and 
what  is  Concord  without  Emerson?"  He  spoke 
with  great  emotion  of  Emerson — "the  noblest 
human  being  I  have  known  " — and  of  Longfellow — 
"perhaps  the  sweetest.  But  you  will  see  Holmes," 
he  added.  I  replied  it  was  my  great  privilege  to  be 
seeing  Dr.  Holmes  every  day,  and  that  the  night 
before  he  had  sent  all  sorts  of  affectionate  messages 


A  Visit  to  Whittier  141 

by  me  to  Mr.  Whittier.  The  latter  expressed  great 
curiosity  to  see  Holmes's  short  "  Life  of  Emerson," 
which,  in  fact,  was  published  five  or  six  days  later. 
With  reminiscences  of  the  past,  and  especially  of 
the  great  group  of  the  poets  his  contemporaries,  my 
venerable  host  kept  me  long  entertained. 

He  presently  said  that  he  would  leave  me  that  he 
might  search  for  a  portrait  of  himself,  which  he  was 
so  kind  as  to  offer  to  me  as  a  memorial  of  my  visit. 
I  proposed  to  take  my  leave,  but  he  insisted  that 
I  must  not  go  ;  he  was  absent  about  twenty  minutes, 
resting,  as  I  gathered,  from  the  exertion  of 
speaking,  which  had  caused  a  noticeable  hoarseness. 
He  returned,  entirely  refreshed,  and  was  once  more 
delightfully  communicative.  I  know  not  how  he 
was  induced  to  go  back  to  the  early  anti-slavery 
days,  but  this  subject  having  been  started,  he 
pursued  it  with  the  greatest  vivacity.  I  was  left 
with  the  impression  that  on  his  sedentary  and  noise- 
less existence  the  troubles  of  1835  had  left  an 
indelible  impression — that  these  formed,  indeed,  the 
most  exciting  pivot  for  his  reminiscences.  He  told 
the  story  of  the  Concord  riots  eagerly  and  merrily, 
no  doubt  in  almost  the  same  words  as  he  had  often 
told  it  before.  His  eyes  flashed,  he  slapped  his 
knees,  he  may  almost  be  said  to  have  gesticulated, 
and  there  was  something  less  than  Quakerly  quiet- 
ism in  his  gusto  at  the  exciting  incidents  of  the 
narrative.  He  told  how  he  was  met  in  the  street 
of  Concord  by  the  rioters,  who  were  looking  for 
George  Thompson,  the  abolitionist  lecturer. 


142  Portraits  and  Sketches 

Thompson  was  a  man  of  about  his  own  age,  and 
the  mob,  supposing  Whittier  to  be  he,  pelted  the 
poet  with  rotten  eggs  and,  worse  than  that,  with 
stones.  Their  aim  was  bad,  for  they  scarcely 
touched  Whittier  with  the  more  serious  missiles, 
which  rattled  instead  on  the  wooden  fence  behind 
him.  He  said  it  made  him  feel  like  the  Apostle 
Paul.  Another  abolitionist,  a  Mr.  Kent,  at  this 
moment  providentially  opened  his  street-door,  and 
Whittier  was  pulled  in  out  of  the  angry  crowd.  I 
forget  exactly  what  happened  next,  but  there  was 
a  great  deal  of  shouting  and  firing,  and  in  the 
process  of  time  George  Thompson  seems  to  have 
joined  the  other  anti-slavery  men  in  their  refuge. 
At  all  events,  Mr.  Whittier  described,  with  immense 
animation  and  spirit,  how  it  became  necessary  at 
length  to  make  a  dash,  and  how  Thompson  and  he 
were  brought  in  a  carriage  to  a  side-door,  and  the 
horse  suddenly  whipped  through  the  unexpectant 
crowds  out  of  the  town  and  far  away  before 
any  one  thought  of  pursuing  them.  At  this  final 
recital  the  old  gentleman  could  remain  seated  no 
longer,  but  started  from  his  chair  and  fought 
his  battle  o'er  again.  No  doubt  it  was  all  recorded 
history,  and  could  be  reconstructed  with  closer 
accuracy  from  the  books,  but  it  was  a  delightful 
and  quite  sufficing  experience  to  hear  it  thus  told 
by  the  most  distinguished  person  engaged,  after  an 
interim  of  nearly  fifty  years. 

If  it  is  not  too  trifling,  I  must  mention,  in  connec- 
tion with  his  magnificent,  lustrous  eyes,  that,  the 


A  Visit  to  Whittier  143 

conversation  turning  upon  the  hues  of  things,  Mr. 
Whittier  greatly  surprised  me  by  confessing  that  he 
was  quite  colour-blind.  He  exemplified  his  condition 
by  saying  that  if  I  came  to  Amesbury  I  should  be 
scandalised  by  one  of  his  carpets.  It  appeared  that 
he  was  never  permitted  by  the  guardian  goddesses  of 
his  hearth  to  go  "  shopping "  for  himself,  but  that 
once,  being  in  Boston,  and  remembering  that  he 
needed  a  carpet,  he  had  ventured  to  go  to  a  store  and 
buy  what  he  thought  to  be  a  very  nice,  quiet  article, 
precisely  suited  to  adorn  a  Quaker  home.  When  it 
arrived  at  Amesbury  there  was  a  universal  shout  of 
horror,  for  what  had  struck  Mr.  Whittier  as  a 
particularly  soft  combination  of  browns  and  greys 
proved  to  normal  eyes  to  be  a  loud  pattern  of  bright 
red  roses  on  a  field  of  the  crudest  cabbage-green. 
When  he  had  told  me  this,  it  was  then  easy  to 
observe  that  the  fullness  and  brilliancy  of  his 
wonderful  eyes  had  something  which  was  not 
enhrely  normal  about  them. 

He  struck  me  as  very  gay  and  cheerful,  in  spite  of 
his  occasional  references  to  the  passage  of  time  and 
the  vanishing  of  beloved  faces.  He  even  laughed, 
frequently  and  with  a  childlike  suddenness,  but 
without  a  sound.  His  face  had  none  of  the  im- 
mobility so  frequent  with  very  aged  persons ;  on 
the  contrary,  waves  of  mood  were  always  sparkling 
across  his  features  and  leaving  nothing  stationary 
there  except  the  narrow,  high,  and  strangely  receding 
forehead.  His  language,  very  fluid  and  easy,  had 
an  agreeable  touch  of  the  soil,  an  occasional  rustic 


144  Portraits  and  Sketches 

note  in  its  elegant  colloquialism,  that  seemed  very 
pleasant  and  appropriate,  as  if  it  linked  him  naturally 
with  the  long  line  of  sturdy  ancestors  of  whom  he 
was  the  final  blossoming.  In  connection  with  his 
poetry,  I  think  it  would  be  difficult  to  form  in  the 
imagination  a  figure  more  appropriate  to  Whittier's 
writings  than  Whittier  himself  proved  to  be  in  the 
flesh. 

Two  days  later  I  received  from  Mr.  Whittier  a 
very  kind  letter  and  the  gift  of  his  latest  volume  of 
poems,  "  The  Bay  of  Seven  Islands."  It  was  far 
from  being  his  last,  for  it  was  to  be  followed  by 
two  more  in  his  lifetime  and  by  a  gleaning  of  post- 
humous verses.  But  it  was  the  book  of  an  old  man, 
and  in  reading  it  one  was  reminded  that  fifty-three 
years  had  passed  since  "  Legends  of  New  England  " 
had  first  given  the  name  of  Whittier  to  the  lovers  of 
poetry.  In  saying  that  "  The  Bay  of  Seven  Islands  " 
is  an  old  man's  book,  however,  I  do  not  mean  that 
it  shows  marks  of  senile  failure,  but  only  that 
the  eye  of  the  writer  is  constantly  on  the  past, 
counting  the  sheaves,  watching  the  red  colour 
in  the  western  sky.  In  verses  not  less  sincere 
because  they  are  a  little  rough,  he  offers  his  own 
apologia.  He  desires,  he  says,  that  it  shall  be  said 
of  him  when  he  is  gone  : 

Hater  of  din  and  riot 
He  lived  in  days  unquiet ; 
And,  lover  of  all  beauty. 
Trod  the  hard  ways  of  duty. 


A  Visit  to  Whittier  145 

To  all  who  dumbly  suffered, 
His  tongue  and  pen  he  offered ; 
His  life  was  not  his  own, 
Nor  lived Jor  self  alone, 

This  we  can  clearly  assert  must  always  be  said  of 
Whittier.  But  what  will  impartial  criticism,  which 
is  deaf  to  all  the  virtues  if  their  expression  be  not  en- 
shrined and  kept  fresh  in  really  fine  literature,  decide 
about  the  poetry  of  this  good  and  graceful  man  ? 

Mr.  Whittier  was  composing  verses  all  his  life, 
and  the  difference  of  quality  between  those  he  wrote 
at  twenty  and  at  eighty  is  remarkably  small.  He 
was  a  poet  in  the  lifetime  of  Gifford  and  Crabbe, 
and  he  was  still  a  poet  when  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling 
was  already  famous.  During  this  vast  period  of 
time  his  style  changed  very  little  ;  it  had  its  ups  and 
downs,  its  laxities  and  then  its  felicities,  but  it  bore 
very  little  relation  to  passing  conditions.  There  rose 
up  beside  it  Tennyson  and  Browning,  Rossetti  and 
Swinburne,  but  none  of  these  affected  Whittier.  His 
genius,  or  talent,  or  knack — whichever  we  choose  to 
call  it — was  an  absolutely  local  and  native  thing.  It 
was  like  the  Indian  waters  of  strange  name  of  which 
it  sang,  Winnepesaukee  and  Merrimac  and  Katahdin ; 
it  streamed  forth,  untouched  by  Europe,  from 
among  the  butternuts  and  maples  of  the  hard  New 
England  landscape.  The  art  in  Whittier's  verse  was 
primitive.  Those  who  love  his  poetry  most  will  wish 
that  he  had  possessed  a  better  ear,  that  he  could  have 
felt  that  "mateless"  does  not  rhyme  with  "greatness." 
In  all  his  books  there  is  a  tendency  to  excess,  to 

K. 


146  Portraits  and  Sketches 

redundancy ;  he  babbles  on,  even  when  he  has 
nothing  very  inspired  to  say. 

But  when  all  this  is  acknowledged,  none  but  a 
very  hasty  reader  will  fail  to  recognise  Whittier's 
lasting  place  in  the  history  of  literature.  He  is  not 
rich,  nor  sonorous,  nor  a  splendid  artist ;  he  is  even 
rather  rarely  exquisite,  but  he  has  an  individuality 
of  his  own  that  is  of  durable  importance.  He  is 
filled  with  moral  enthusiasm,  as  a  trumpet  is  filled 
with  the  breath  of  him  who  blows  it.  His  Quaker 
quietism  concentrates  itself  till  it  breaks  in  a  real 
passion-storm  of  humanity,  and  when  Whittier  is 
roused  he  sings  with  the  thrilling  sweetness  of  a 
wood-thrush.  By  dint  of  simplicity  and  earnestness, 
he  frequently  hits  upon  the  most  charming  phrases, 
instinct  with  life  and  truth  ;  so  that  the  English  poet 
with  whom  it  seems  most  natural  to  compare  him  in 
the  lyrical  order  is  the  epic  and  didactic  Crabbe. 
If  the  author  of  "The  Borough"  had  been 
dowered  with  the  gift  of  writing  in  octosyllabics  and 
short  stanzaic  measures,  and  had  been  born  of  stern 
Puritan  stock  in  Massachusetts,  and  had  been  roused 
by  the  sight  of  a  public  iniquity,  such  as  slavery, 
recognised  and  applauded  in  society,  he  might  have 
presented  to  the  world  a  talent  very  much  resembling 
that  of  Whittier.  But,  as  it  is,  we  look  around  in 
vain  for  an  English  or  American  poet  of  anything 
like  the  same  merit  who  shares  the  place  of  Whittier. 

The  grave  of  the  admirable  Quaker  poet  at  Ames- 
bury  is  hemmed  in  by  a  hedge  of  vigorous  arbor 
vitae.  His  memory,  in  like  manner,  depends  for  its 


A  Visit  to  Whittier  147 

protection,  not  on  the  praise  of  exotic  communities 
which  can  never,  though  they  admire,  rightly  com- 
prehend it,  but  on  the  conscience  of  New  England, 
shy,  tenacious,  intrepid,  to  which,  more  than  any 
other  poet  has  done,  Whittier  made  a  direct  and 
constant  appeal. 


THE  AUTHOR  OF  "JOHN 

INGLESANT  " 

1834-1903 


THE  AUTHOR  OF  "JOHN 
INGLESANT" 

THE  two  volumes  of  her  husband's  ''Letters 
and  Literary  Remains,"  which  Mrs.  Shorthouse 
published  in  1905,  must  have  familiarised  a  great 
number  of  readers  with  a  favourite  author  who, 
during  his  lifetime,  was  something  of  a  mystery  to 
most  of  them.  In  order  to  see  Joseph  Henry 
Shorthouse  in  the  flesh  it  was  necessary  to  make  a 
pilgrimage  to  Birmingham,  where  he  shone  for 
twenty  years  as  the  principal  literary  light.  Over 
this  light,  even  in  its  provincial  sphere,  for  a 
long  time  there  descended  more  and  more  closely 
the  extinguisher  of  an  ill-health  which  gradually 
obscured  it  completely.  One  cannot  be  certain 
that  even  these  volumes,  so  devotedly  and  so 
punctiliously  prepared  by  his  widow,  will  repeat 
for  the  many  the  impression  which  his  very  curious 
person  made  upon  the  few  who  knew  him.  Upon 
myself,  who  saw  him  first  nearly  thirty  years  ago, 
when  his  energies  were  at  their  height,  the  effect  he 
then  made  was  startling.  I  had  vaguely  anticipated 
something  Quakerish  or  clerical,  something  faintly 


152  Portraits  and  Sketches 

recalling  the  seventeenth-century  Puritan  clergy- 
man, with  perhaps  a  touch  of  Little  Gidding.  Very 
elegant  and  colourless,  one  fancied  him ;  a  grave 
man,  pale  with  meditation  and  dyed  in  the  drab 
tincture  of  provinciality. 

The  exact  opposite  was  the  fact.  J.  H.  Shorthouse 
was  one  of  the  most  eighteenth-century-looking 
people  who  have  been  seen  in  our  day.  But  it  was 
not  the  eighteenth  century  of  Gainsborough  and 
Romney  which  he  represented  ;  it  was  Italian.  To 
tell  the  truth,  the  instant  and  irresistible  impression 
which  he  gave  was  that  of  a  mask  of  1750  suddenly 
revived  out  of  some  serious  and  romantic  pastoral. 
He  did  not  seem  a  part  of  actual  existence ;  he 
made  his  entry  facendo  il  bergamasco,  and  one 
almost  expected  him  to  take  off  his  large  artificial 
face,  so  much  too  big  for  his  body,  and  reveal  a 
living  Shorthouse  below.  With  this  curious  illusion 
of  wearing  a  mask  were  connected  his  love  of  a 
discreet  but  unusual  gaiety  of  colour  in  dress,  and 
the  movements  of  his  soft,  slightly  prelatical  hands. 
His  extreme  courtesy  and  his  few  and  stereotyped 
but  unusual  gestures  made  it  easy  to  think  of  a 
Shorthouse,  scarcely  changed  at  all,  moving  in 
the  kaleidoscopic  procession  of  figures  in  some 
Neapolitan  festival.  Mrs.  Shorthouse,  with  laudable 
courage,  does  not  attempt  to  disguise  from  her 
readers  what  was  the  great  physical  misfortune  of 
her  husband's  life,  his  incurable  stammer.  When 
I  knew  him  first,  this  was  not  yet  incessant  and  was 
still  under  some  control.  But  it  added  to  that  strange 


"John  Inglesant "  153 

resemblance  with  Italian  types  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  since  the  recollection  of  the  stutter  of 
Tartaglia  (if  I  may  be  pardoned  for  saying  so)  was 
made  irresistible  by  it. 

It  is  perhaps  not  fantastic  to  say  that,  in  his 
intellectual  character  also,  Shorthouse  loved  to 
wear  a  domino  and  fling  a  purple  cloak  across  his 
shoulders.  His  mind  went  through  life  playing  a 
grave  and  graceful  part,  and  his  whole  scheme  of 
culture  was  a  delicate  sport  or  elaborate  system  of 
make-believe.  He  had  never  been  in  Italy,  or, 
indeed,  across  the  English  Channel,  yet  he  loved 
to  fancy  that  he  had  travelled  extensively  and 
confidentially  in  romantic  Catholic  countries.  It 
is  the  custom  nowadays  to  speak  of  his  pictures  of 
Italy  as  artless  and  "clumsy" — the  word  (which 
would  have  cut  Shorthouse  to  the  quick)  was 
actually  used  to  describe  them  the  other  day.  It 
does  not  seem  to  me  that  they  deserve  this  censure, 
which  is  based  upon  a  supposition  that  every  author 
is  bound  to  paint  topographically,  with  his  eye  on 
the  object,  like  Ruskin  or  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett. 
Some  people  think  they  have  swept  Shorthouse 
away  if  they  can  prove  that  a  palace  which  he 
supposed  to  be  of  white  marble  is  really  built  of 
red  brick.  The  staircase  of  the  house  in  Edgbaston 
was  lined  with  fine  impressions  of  the  engravings  of 
Piranesi,  and  Shorthouse,  seeing  my  eye  rest  on 
these  one  day,  said,  "  I  got  all  my  Italian  local 
colour  out  of  those  prints."  Now,  it  is — not  to  be 
captious — precisely  "  colour  "  that  one  does  not  get 


154  Portraits  and  Sketches 

out  of  the  stately  convention  of  Piranesi.  Con- 
sequently, the  author  of  "John  Inglesant"  had, 
unconsciously,  to  supply  a  great  deal  out  of  his 
brooding  imagination.  The  whole  thing  was  false, 
in  a  sense,  if  you  like  to  put  it  so  ;  he  was  not 
describing,  he  was  hardly  creating,  he  was  simply 
facendo  il  bergamasco. 

The  author  who  "  does  his  bergamask  "  runs  the 
greatest  risk  of  being  misconceived  by  criticism. 
All  the  righteous  commonplaces  are  trotted  out 
against  him.  He  is  told  that  what  he  writes  is 
laboured  and  unreal,  he  is  called  self-conscious  and 
academic,  he  is  advised  to  put  off  his  domino  and 
his  cloak  and  to  behave  like  other  people.  He  is 
reproved  because  life  does  not  affect  him  directly 
and  because  he  has  no  objective  sympathy  with 
mankind.  This  is  the  note  of  clever  criticism 
to-day  with  regard  to  "  John  Inglesant,"  a  book 
which  seems  to  have  passed,  perhaps  only  for  the 
moment,  out  of  fashion.  The  way  to  meet  these 
attacks,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  admit  their  premises, 
and  then  to  inquire  what  it  all  matters.  If  we  are 
to  accept  only  one  kind  of  fiction,  strong  in  humour, 
vivid  and  strenuous  in  relation  to  life,  standing 
sturdily  on  two  sound  legs  of  common-sense,  then 
we  must  confine  ourselves  to  a  very  few  books,  of 
which  "Tom  Jones"  is  unquestionably  the  best. 
But  without  withdrawing  a  single  epithet  of  eulogy 
from  Fielding  and  the  great  realists,  we  must 
consent  to  widen  our  borders  sufficiently  to  embrace 
the  fantastic,  the  unreal,  the  capricious  types  of 


"John  Inglesant "  155 

fiction.  The  terms  which  are  used  nowadays  to 
exclude  "John  Inglesant"  from  commendation  would 
forbid  us  to  admire  "  La  Princesse  de  Cleves "  on 
the  one  hand  and  "  The  Shaving  of  Shagpat " 
on  the  other.  This  is  a  tendency  which  must  be 
resisted.  There  is  a  legitimate  pleasure  to  be  found 
in  the  cultivation  of  a  moral  spectacle.  It  was  this, 
a  sort  of  commedia  erudita,  which  it  was  Shorthouse's 
aim  to  produce.  He  did  so  in  "  John  Inglesant," 
and  more  exquisitely  still,  it  seems  to  me,  in  a  book 
which  has  never  been  properly  appreciated,  "  The 
Little  Schoolmaster  Mark." 

There  are  certain  points  of  view  from  which  these 
romances  must  always  retain  their  importance  for 
the  social  student  of  the  mid-Victorian  period.  They 
are  the  typical  novels  of  the  great  awakening  of 
middle-class  culture  in  the  sixties.  In  those  days 
Oxford  might  possess  its  Matthew  Arnold,  and 
Chelsea  its  Whistler,  and  Fairyland  its  Rossetti  and 
its  Morris,  but  it  was  inconceivable  that  Birmingham 
could  exhibit  a  school  of  beauty  or  a  cult  of  romance. 
The  extraordinary  success  of  "  John  Inglesant"  re- 
sulted from  its  answer  to  the  appeal  for  new  light 
from  the  Midlands,  to  the  cry  from  local  centres 
which  still  lay  in  aesthetic  darkness,  but  had  heard 
that  the  dayspring  of  art  was  at  hand.  Shorthouse, 
who  liked  to  talk  about  his  books  with  his  intimate 
friends,  often  spoke  to  me  about  the  inception  of 
"  John  Inglesant."  He  regarded  it,  I  think,  as  a 
little  mysterious,  almost  supernatural.  He  did  not 
fatuously  exaggerate  the  importance  of  it,  but  it  was 


156  Portraits  and  Sketches 

impossible  for  him  to  ignore  the  tremendous  re- 
sponse which  came  back  to  him  from  its  readers.  He 
was  a  little  alarmed,  immensely  pleased,  and  most  of 
all  surprised.  As  he  talked  of  the  career  of  the  novel, 
his  large  solemn  face,  with  its  incredible  whiskers, 
would  take  an  air  of  almost  pathetic  astonishment. 

His  attitude  was,  so  far  as  sobriety  would  allow 
him  to  suggest  it,  that  "  John  Inglesant "  was  the 
result  of  a  kind  of  vocation.  He  was  without  pride, 
but  he  really  believed  that  the  subject  was  "given  " 
to  him,  and  he  was  wont  to  quote  of  himself,  as  a 
writer,  4<  Blessed  is  the  man  whom  Thou  choosest, 
and  causest  to  approach  unto  Thee,  that  he  may 
dwell  in  Thy  courts."  In  1866  he  began  to  feel  that 
he  must  write  a  book — he,  a  shy,  Quakerish  manu- 
facturer, without  literary  training,  subdued  by  per- 
sistent ill-health.  Nobody  suggested  or  encouraged 
this  idea,  but  it  grew  ;  "  if  it  were  only  quite  a  little 
book  which  nobody  read,  I  should  like  to  write  one." 
Then,  as  he  brooded  vaguely,  he  read  a  paragraph 
somewhere  about  a  knight  who  forgave  the  murderer 
of  his  brother.  This  was  the  grain  of  mustard-seed, 
and  it  took  ten  years  for  it  to  bourgeon  into  the  great 
Christian  romance  we  all  know.  Meantime,  the 
simplicity  of  Shorthouse's  intellectual  life  must  have 
been  something  extraordinary.  He  became  ac- 
quainted— this  alone  shows  the  vacancy  of  the  world 
in  which  he  had  lived — about  the  age  of  thirty-two, 
he  became  acquainted  with  "  The  Christian  Year  " 
and  the  poems  of  Wordsworth.  The  visit  of  a  "  vene- 
rable and  beloved"  bishop  to  Birmingham  filled 


"John  Inglesant"  157 

him  with  enthusiasm  ;  his  lordship  came  to  tea,  con- 
sented to  read  some  passages  of  Wordsworth  aloud  in 
the  Shorthouses'  drawing-room,  and  was  let  into  the 
secret  that  his  host  had  "  written  a  book."  The  bishop 
read  it,  and  said  that  it  "  contains  a  great  deal  of 
very  unusual  information."  Another  bishop,  equally 
affable,  went  further,  and  said  that  he  did  not  know 
whether  he  had  "  ever  read  a  book  of  the  kind  which 
had  struck  or  interested  him  more."  We  seem  walk- 
ing among  shadows  in  these  faint  emotions,  and  in 
the  centre  is  a  half-bewildered  Shorthouse,  with 
rapturous  face  upturned,  aghast  at  the  prescience  of 
these  prelates.  But  when  had  a  famous  book  a 
stranger  birth  ? 

"  John  Inglesant  "  was  privately  printed — for  no 
publisher  would  take  the  risk  of  it — in  1880.  Short- 
house  was  in  his  forty-seventh  year,  and  expected 
nothing  more  of  life,  save  perhaps  richer  vestmented 
services  at  church  on  Sundays,  a  fresh  talk  over  the 
tea-table  with  some  visiting  bishop,  and  a  shy  com- 
munication by  letter,  now  and  then,  with  some 
author  unknown  to  him  whose  works  had  delighted 
him.  But  all  through  these  years,  in  reality,  he  had 
been  insensibly  growing  into  his  own  type  ;  he  had 
fixed  his  eyes  on  a  moderate  antiquity  until  he  had 
begun  to  be  moderately  antique  himself.  He  began 
to  inhabit  Edgbaston,  that  serene  and  highly  cultured 
apanage  to  Birmingham,  breathlessly,  as  if  it  were 
the  gate  of  Heaven.  At  length  he  was  actually  sum- 
moned to  London  to  breakfast  with  Mr.  Gladstone 
(May  4,  1882),  and  he  went,  dreadfully  alarmed,  but 


158  Portraits  and  Sketches 

believing  it  to  be  his  aesthetic  privilege  and  duty  to 
obey,  much  as  St.  Francis  might  have  left  Assisi  for 
Rome.  And  this  was  the  occasion,  I  think,  on  which 
he  finally  adopted  his  bergamask.  He  was  no  longer 
Mr.  Joseph  Henry  Shorthouse,  the  vitriol  manu- 
facturer of  Birmingham ;  he  was  the  author  of 
"John  Inglesant,"  into  whose  earthen  vessel  had 
been  divinely  poured  waters  for  the  healing  of  the 
nations. 

Lest  I  be  misunderstood  to  speak  slightingly,  in 
trying  to  speak  carefully,  of  this  excellent  man,  whom 
I  admired  and  loved,  I  would  immediately  proceed 
to  say  what  in  his  own  idea  justified  the  slightly 
solemn  way  in  which  he  regarded  his  mission.  He 
believed  that  he  had  been  raised  up  to  persuade 
people  that  God  prefers  culture  to  fanaticism.  He 
asserted  this  again  and  again ;  the  formula  is  his 
own.  He  disliked  excess  of  every  kind — tumultuous 
benevolence,  exaggerated  faith,  fanatical  action. 
He  was  of  opinion  that  our  English  life,  public 
and  private,  as  it  was  worked  out  to  a  practical 
issue  forty  years  ago,  was  a  mistake.  He  was 
an  epicurean  quietist,  who  believed  that  the 
main  object  of  every  man's  life  should  be  to 
conquer  and  secure  for. himself  peace  of  mind  and 
a  solution  of  the  intellectual  difficulties  which  have 
perplexed  him.  He  held  that  so  far  as  philanthropy, 
or  active  energy  of  any  sort,  was  incompatible  with 
perfect  culture,  it  was  wrong,  it  was  unwholesome 
and  immoral.  In  his  attitude  towards  altruism  and 
public  pity,  the  author  of  "John  Inglesant,"  arriving 


"John  Inglesant "  159 

from  the  opposite  point  of  the  compass,  was  oddly 
in  harmony  with  Nietzsche,  of  whom  he  had  never 
heard,  and  whom  he  would  have  looked  upon  as 
a  ruffian.  Shorthouse  grew,  gentle  as  he  was,  quite 
courageous  when  the  ideas  in  "John  Inglesant" 
were  attacked.  Lord  Acton  found  fault  with  the 
character  of  the  Jesuit ;  Shorthouse  replied,  "  I 
never  reason  with  Roman  Catholics  :  they  live  in  a 
fairyland  of  their  own  " — a  delightful  rejoinder. 

The  success  of  '*  John  Inglesant "  occurred  thirty 
years  ago,  and  the  world  has  a  short  memory.  But 
some  of  us,  alas  !  can  very  clearly  recall  the 
momentous  circumstances  of  it.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
swept  away  by  the  tide  of  enthusiasm,  yet  ambitious 
to  guide  it,  was  photographed  with  the  second  volume 
of  "  John  Inglesant"  open  on  his  knee,  "the  title  of 
the  book  quite  plain  "  even  to  those  outside  the 
shop-windows  of  the  vendors.  Not  provincial 
prelates  any  longer,  but  archbishops,  cardinals, 
professors,  ladies  of  the  first  quality  bombarded 
Edgbaston  with  their  correspondence.  For  the 
next  five  years,  at  least,  Shorthouse  was  an  accepted 
celebrity,  the  champion  of  good  taste,  the  unfailing 
source  of  rather  vague  but  always  stimulating 
"  thoughts  about  beauty,"  the  introducer  into  middle- 
class  life  and  conduct  of  an  extreme  refinement. 
It  was  much  to  his  advantage,  and,  perhaps,  a 
proof  of  his  wisdom,  that  he  resisted  all  incitements 
to  break  up  his  provincial  habits  and  be  translated 
to  residence  in  London.  It  was  in  Birmingham, 
and  only  in  Birmingham,  as  an  unconscious  senti- 


160  Portraits  and  Sketches 

ment  taught  him,  that  he  could  carry  on  his 
graceful,  intellectual  parade  without  disturbance. 
It  depended  extremely  on  exterior  symbols  and 
superficial  attitudes. 

It  behoves  us  to  speak  with  no  less  respect  than 
sympathy  of  another  phase  of  Shorthouse's  character 
into  the  cultivation  of  which  he  threw  particular  care. 
But  in  the  religious  aspect  of  his  genius,  too,  I  find 
the  same  remarkable  cultivation  of  external  charac- 
teristics. Shall  we  say  that  when  he  went  to  church, 
as  he  so  -consistently  loved  to  do,  he  still  wore  the 
domino  ?  I  think  we  must  say  so,  and  certainly  he 
was  never  more  sincere  nor  more  individual  than 
when  he  dwelt  upon  the  importance  of  cultivating 
the  religious  symbol.  In  literature,  in  art,  in  piety, 
it  was  the  becoming  attitude  which  Shorthouse 
valued,  not  merely  for  its  own  sake,  but  because  he 
believed  that  it  naturally  led  to  sympathy  and 
delicacy,  and  perhaps — but  this  was  less  essential — 
to  faith  itself.  In  the  course  of  my  own  long  talks 
with  him,  this  preference  for  ceremony  over  dogma, 
this  instinct  for  the  beautiful  parade  and  refined 
self-surrender  of  religion,  grew  to  seem  the  central 
feature  of  Shorthouse's  intellectual  character,  ex- 
plaining everything  in  his  books,  in  his  letters,  in 
his  personal  conduct.  He  wished,  as  we  know, 
that  the  agnostic  should  be  persuaded  to  come  to 
the  Sacrament,  not  that  he  might  testify  to  a  creed 
which  he  did  not  share,  but  that  "  some  effect  of 
sympathy,  some  magic  chord  and  thrill  of  sweetness 
should  mollify  and  refresh  his  heart." 


"John  Inglesant "  161 

There  are,  of  course,  a  great  many  sensible  and 
strong-minded   people  who   object  to    this  whole 
attitude,  who  insist  that  we  should  be  our  own  plain 
selves,  and  wear  no  mask  in  literature  or  in  religion. 
These  people  would  have  had  Shorthouse  remember 
that  he  was  a  manufacturer  of  vitriol  (a  quaint  fact 
which,  I  think,  Mrs.  Shorthouse  never  happens  to 
mention),    "  behaving  as    such "   quite    prosaically 
wherever  the  wealth  of  Birmingham  was  gathered 
together.     But,  as  the  poet  pathetically  puts  it,  "  the 
world  is  full  of  a  number  of  things,"  and  oceans  of 
sulphuric  acid  will  be  poured  out  before  we  have 
another  visionary  dreamer  like  the  author  of  "  John 
Inglesant."     His  sequestered  existence,  which  would 
have  made  him  earth-bound  if  he  had   not  lifted 
himself  on   the  wings  of  fancy,   concentrated   his 
peculiarities  and  intensified  a  sort  of  exquisite  pro- 
vinciality.    Shorthouse  was  very  modest,  with  a  due 
self-consciousness  of   merit ;  he   was  very  simple, 
with  a  certain  love  of  pomp  and  artifice  ;  he  clung  to 
a  sense  of  the  importance  of  beauty  as  a  safeguard 
against  what  was  small  and  tiresome  in  daily  life* 
It  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  put  Shorthouse  in 
the  forefront  of  the  authors  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
His  work  is  not  copious  enough  and  not  spontaneous 
enough  for  that.     But  he  had  a  real  talent  for  care- 
fully studied  and  delicately  harmonious  prose,  and 
for  that  kind  of  painstaking  literary  harlequinade 
which  we  call  pastiche. 

It  is  customary  to  say  that  the  present  generation 
has  forgotten  Shorthouse.     If  that  is  true,  let  it  be 


1 62  Portraits  and  Sketches 

reminded  of  his  admirable  characteristics  by  the 
pious  labours  of  his  widow.  But  I  think  we  are  apt 
to  judge  too  hastily  of  what  "  the  younger  genera- 
tion "  is  supposed  to  remember  or  to  forget.  The 
impress  of  Shorthouse's  genius  seems  to  me,  on  the 
contrary,  to  be  patent  on  many  sides  of  us.  We  see 
it,  surely,  in  recent  books  so  dissimilar  and  yet  so 
admirable  as  ''  Ariadne  in  Mantua  "  and  "  Zuleika 
Dobson."  The  bergamot  perfume  persists  ;  it  would 
be  absurd  to  wish  that  it  should  pervade  every 
bouquet.  But  we  must  hope  that  "  the  younger 
generation,"  that  mysterious  band  of  invaders,  will 
deign  to  read  the  volumes  of  essays  and  letters  which 
Mrs.  Shorthouse  presented  to  them.  They  will  find, 
I  admit,  a  certain  faintness,  a  certain  weakness  and 
ineffectuality,  but  it  will  be  astonishing  if  they  do 
not  also  admit  that  "an  inexpressibly  sweet  and 
delicate  melody  has  penetrated  their  senses." 


MANDELL    CREIGHTON 

1843-1901 


MANDELL   CREIGHTON 

IN  heroic  times,  when  a  monarch  was  about  to 
make  a  solemn  adventure  into  strange  dominions, 
he  chose  one  of  the  wisest  and  noblest  of  his 
subjects,  and  sent  him  forward  as  a  herald.  Those 
who  indulge  such  fancies  may  have  seen  a  mys- 
terious revival  of  this  custom  in  the  fate  which 
removed  the  admirable  Bishop  of  London  exactly 
eight  days  before  his  Queen  was  called  upon  to 
take  the  same  dread  journey.  If  ceremonial  had 
demanded,  at  the  approach  of  such  an  event,  a 
sacrifice  of  the  most  honoured,  the  most  valued,  the 
most  indispensable,  many  alternatives  would  have 
occurred  to  those  on  whom  the  wretched  duty  of 
choice  would  have  fallen  ;  but  it  is  probable  that 
among  the  first  half-dozen  of  such  precious  names 
would  have  been  found  that  of  a  Churchman, 
Mandell  Creighton.  His  wholesome  virtues,  his 
indefatigable  vigour,  the  breadth  of  his  sympathy, 
the  strenuous  activity  of  his  intellect,  pointed  him 
out  as  the  man  who  more  than  any  other  seemed 
destined  to  justify  the  ways  of  the  national  Church 
in  the  eyes  of  modern  thought,  the  ecclesiastic  who 
more  than  any  other  would  continue  to  conciliate 
the  best  and  keenest  secular  opinion. 


1 66  Portraits  and  Sketches 

In  Creighton,  in  short,  a  real  prince  of  the 
Church  seemed  to  be  approaching  the  ripeness  of 
his  strength.  He  seemed  preparing  to  spend  the 
next  quarter  of  a  century  in  leading  a  huge  and 
motley  flock  more  or  less  safely  into  tolerably  green 
pastures.  Here,  then,  we  thought  we  had  found, 
what  we  so  rarely  see  in  England,  a  political  prelate 
of  the  first  rank.  With  all  this  were  combined 
gifts  of  a  literary  and  philosophical  order,  a 
lambent  wit,  a  nature  than  which  few  have  been 
known  more  generous  or  affectionate,  and  a  con- 
stitution which  promised  to  defy  the  years.  No 
wonder,  then,  if  Creighton  had  begun  to  take  his 
place  as  one  of  the  most  secure  and  precious  of 
contemporary  institutions.  In  the  fullness  of  his 
force,  at  the  height  of  his  intellectual  meridian,  he 
suddenly  dropped  out  of  the  sky.  And  with  all 
the  sorrow  that  we  felt  was  mingled  the  homely 
poignancy  of  a  keen  disappointment. 

I 

Mandell  Creighton  was  the  son  of  Robert 
Creighton,  timber  merchant  of  Carlisle,  and  of 
Sarah  Mandell,  his  wife.  On  both  sides  he  came 
of  sound  Cumberland  stock.  He  was  born  at 
Carlisle,  on  July  5,  1843.  He  went  to  school  at 
Durham,  and  in  1862  he  was  elected  "  postmaster  " 
of  Merton  College,  Oxford  ;  that  is  to  say,  a  scholar 
supported  on  the  foundation.  He  spent  the  next 
thirteen  years  at  the  university  ;  and  this  period 


Mandell  Creighton  167 

forms  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  sharply 
marked  stages  into  which  Creighton's  life  was 
divided.  Oxford,  Embleton,  Cambridge,  Peter- 
borough, London — it  is  very  seldom  that  the 
career  of  a  modern  man  is  subdivided  by  such 
clean  sword-cuts  through  the  texture  of  his  personal 
habits.  But  it  was  the  earliest  of  these  stages  which 
really  decided  the  order  and  character  of  the  others. 
It  is  easy  to  think  of  a  Creighton  who  was  never 
Bishop  of  Peterborough  ;  it  is  already  becoming 
difficult  to  recollect  at  all  clearly  the  one  who  was 
Dixie  Professor  at  Cambridge.  But  to  think  of 
Creighton  and  not  think  of  Oxford  is  impossible. 
From  the  beginning  of  his  career  to  the  close  of 
it  he  exhaled  the  spirit  of  that  university. 

Those  who  knew  Creighton  as  Bishop  of  London 
may  feel  that  they  knew  him  as  a  young  tutor  at 
Oxford.  Those  whose  friendship  with  him  goes 
back  further  than  mine  tell  me  that  as  quite  a 
young  undergraduate  he  had  exactly  the  same 
manner  which  we  became  accustomed  to  later.  He 
never  changed  in  the  least  essential  matter  ;  he 
grew  in  knowledge  and  experience,  indeed,  but  the 
character  was  strongly  sketched  in  him  from  the 
very  first.  Boys  are  quick  in  their  instinctive 
observation,  and  almost  as  a  freshman  Creighton 
was  dubbed  "  the  Professor."  At  Merton  they  were 
fond  of  nicknames,  and  they  liked  them  short ;  it 
followed  that  the  future  Bishop  of  London,  during 
his  undergraduate  days,  was  known  among  his 
intimates  as  "  the  P."  He  wore  glasses,  and  they 


1 68  Portraits  and  Sketches 

gleamed  already  with  something  of  the  flash  that 
was  to  become  so  famous.  In  those  earliest  days, 
when  other  boys  were  largely  playing  the  fool, 
Creighton  was  instinctively  practising  to  play  the 
teacher.  Already,  indeed,  he  was  scholastic  in  the 
habit  of  his  mind,  although  never,  I  think,  what 
could,  with  even  an  undergraduate's  exaggeration, 
be  styled  "  priggish."  I  have  heard  of  the  zeal  with 
which,  at  a  very  early  age,  quite  secretly  and  un- 
obtrusively, he  would  help  lame  (and  presumably 
idle)  dogs  over  educational  stiles.  He  was  not  a 
cricketer,  but  he  took  plenty  of  strenuous  exercise 
in  the  form  of  walking  and  rowing.  He  sought 
glory  in  the  Merton  boat,  and  it  is  still  remembered 
that  he  was  an  ornament  to  a  certain  nautical  club, 
composed  of  graduates,  and  called  the  Ancient 
Mariners.  But  the  maniacal  lovers  of  athletic  exer- 
cise can  never  quote  Creighton  as  one  of  their 
examples. 

When  he  became  a  don — fellow  and  tutor  of  his 
college — the  real  life  of  Creighton  began.  The 
chrysalis  broke,  and  the  academic  butterfly  ap- 
peared. With  a  certain  small  class  of  men  at 
Merton  he  was,  I  believe,  for  a  very  short  time, 
unpopular.  It  was  a  college  illustrious  for  the  self- 
abandonment  of  high  spirits,  and  Creighton  had  a 
genius  for  discipline.  But  he  was  very  soon  re- 
spected, and  his  influence  over  each  of  his  particular 
pupils  was  tremendous.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  while  everybody  speaks  of  Creighton's  "in- 
fluence "  over  himself  or  others,  no  one  ever  seems 


Mandell  Creighton  169 

to  recall  any  "  influence  "  from  without  acting  upon 
Creighton.  As  to  the  undergraduates  brought  under 
his  care  from  1866  onwards,  there  is  probably  not 
one  surviving  who  does  not  recollect  the  young 
tutor  with  respect,  and  few  who  do  not  look  back 
upon  him  with  affection.  As  a  disciplinarian  he 
was  quick  and  firm  ;  he  was  no  martinet,  but  the 
men  under  his  charge  soon  understood  that  they 
must  work  hard  and  behave  themselves.  From 
each  he  would  see  that  he  got  the  best  there  was 
to  give. 

He  had  great  courage  ;  it  was  always  one  of  his 
qualities.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  exhibitions 
of  it,  I  think,  was  his  custom — while  he  was  a  fellow 
at  Merton,  and  afterwards  when  he  was  professor  at 
Cambridge — of  holding  informal  meetings  in  his 
rooms,  at  which  he  allowed  any  species  of  historical 
conundrum  to  be  put  to  him,  and  enforced  himself 
to  give  a  reasonable  answer  to  it.  The  boys  would 
try  to  pose  him,  of  course ;  would  grub  up  out-of- 
the-way  bits  of  historical  erudition.  Creighton  was 
always  willing  "  to  face  the  music,"  and  I  have  never 
heard  of  his  being  drawn  into  any  absurd  position. 
Few  pundits  of  a  science  would  be  ready  to  undergo 
such  a  searching  test  of  combined  learning  and 
common-sense. 

Of  Creighton's  particular  pupils,  in  those  early 
days,  two  at  least  were  destined  to  hold  positions  of 
great  prominence.  In  none  of  the  obituary  notices 
of  the  Bishop  of  London,  so  far  as  I  saw,  were  his 
interesting  relations  with  Lord  Randolph  Churchill 


1 70  Portraits  and  Sketches 

so  much  as  mentioned.  A  few  months  after 
Creighton  was  placed  on  the  governing  body  of 
Merton,  Lord  Randolph  made  his  appearance  there 
as  an  undergraduate.  He  was  conspicuous,  in  those 
days,  as  an  unpromising  type  of  the  rowdy  noble- 
man. Nobody,  not  even  his  own  family,  believed 
in  a  respectable  future  for  him ;  but  Creighton, 
with  that  singular  perspicacity  which  was  one  of  his 
more  remarkable  characteristics,  divined  better 
things  in  Lord  Randolph  at  once.  A  friend 
was  once  walking  with  the  tutor  of  Merton,  when 
down  the  street  came  swaggering  and  strutting,  with 
a  big  nosegay  at  his  buttonhole  and  a  moustache 
curled  skywards,  Lord  Randolph  Churchill,  dressed, 
as  they  say,  "  to  kill."  The  friend  could  not  resist 
a  gesture  of  disdain,  but  Creighton  said  :  "  You  are 
like  everybody  else  :  you  think  he  is  an  awful  ass  ! 
You  are  wrong  :  he  isn't.  You  will  see  that  he  will 
have  a  brilliant  future,  and  what's  more  definite,  a 
brilliant  political  future.  See  whether  my  prophecy 
doesn't  turn  out  true."  All  through  the  period  of 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill's  amazing  harvest  of  wild 
oats  Creighton  continued  to  believe  in  him.  I 
recollect  challenging  his  faith  in  1880,  when  Lord 
Randolph  was  covering  himself,  after  his  second 
election  for  Woodstock,  with  ridicule.  He  replied  : 
"  You  think  all  this  preposterous  conduct  is  mere 
folly  ?  You  are  wrong  :  it  is  only  the  fermentation 
of  a  very  remarkable  talent."  Of  course  he  was 
right ;  and  as  he  lived  to  rejoice  in  the  rush  of  his 
meteor  heavenwards,  he  lived  to  lament  the  earth- 


Mandell  Creighton  171 

ward  tumble  of  all  the  sparks  and  sticks.  Another 
undergraduate  of  eminence,  to  whose  care  Creighton 
was  specially  appointed,  was  the  Queen's  youngest 
son,  Leopold,  Duke  of  Albany,  to  whom  he  gave 
private  lessons  in  history  and  literature,  and  over 
whose  mind  he  exercised  a  highly  beneficial  influ- 
ence. It  was  Prince  Leopold  who  first  introduced 
Creighton's  name  to  the  Queen,  and  started  her 
interest  in  his  ecclesiastical  career. 

It  was  not  until  he  became  a  don  at  Merton,  in 
1866,  that  Creighton  formed  a  group  of  really 
intimate  friends.  Then,  immediately,  his  talents 
and  his  conversation  opened  to  him  the  whole  circle 
of  the  best  minds  of  Oxford.  No  one  could  be 
more  attractive  in  such  a  society.  His  affectionate 
nature  and  his  very  iresh  and  vigorous  intellect 
made  him  the  most  delightful  of  companions,  and 
he  was  preserved  by  a  certain  inherent  magnanimity 
from  the  pettiness  which  sometimes  afflicts  university 
coteries.  From  the  very  first  it  was  understood  that 
he  would  be  an  historian  (although,  by  the  irony  of 
examinations,  he  had  gained  only  a  "  second  class  " 
in  modern  history),  but  it  was  not  clearly  seen  how 
this  obvious  native  bent  would  be  made  to  serve  a 
profession.  Suddenly,  to  everybody's  great  surprise, 
in  1870  he  was  ordained  deacon,  and  priest  in  1873. 
The  reasons  which  led  him  to  take  so  unexpected  a 
step  have  been  frequently  the  subject  of  conjecture. 
I  shall  presently,  in  endeavouring  to  form  a  portrait 
of  his  character,  return  to  a  consideration  of  this 
most  interesting  and  important  question. 


172  Portraits  and  Sketches 

He  was  now,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  one  of  the  most 
individual  types  which  Oxford,  then  abounding  in 
men  of  character,  could  offer  to  the  observation  of 
a  visitor.  He  was  already  one  of  the  features  of 
the  society  :  he  was,  perhaps,  more  frequently  and 
freely  discussed  than  any  other  Oxonian  of  his 
years.  He  was  too  strong  a  man  to  be  universally 
approved  of  :  the  dull  thought  him  paradoxical,  the 
solemn  thought  him  flippant ;  already  there  was  the 
whisper  abroad  that  he  was  "not  a  spiritually- 
minded  man."  But  the  wise  and  the  good,  if  they 
sometimes  may  have  doubted  his  gravity,  never 
doubted  his  sincerity  ;  nor  would  there  be  many 
ready  to  denounce  their  own  appreciation  of  good 
company  by  declaring  his  conversation  anything 
but  most  attractive. 

It  was  soon  after  he  became  a  priest — it  was  in 
the  early  summer  of  1874 — that  I  first  met  Creighton. 
I  was  on  a  visit  to  Walter  Pater  and  his  sisters,  who 
were  then  residing  in  the  suburbs  of  Oxford,  in 
Bradmore  Road.  To  luncheon  on  Sunday  came  a 
little  party  of  distinguished  guests — Henry  Smith 
and  his  sister,  Max  Miiller,  Bonamy  Price  (I  think), 
and  lastly  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Creighton  ;  for  he  had 
married  two  years  before  this.  Much  the  youngest 
person  present,  I  kept  an  interested  silence ;  most 
of  the  talk,  indeed,  being  fitted  for  local  con- 
sumption, and,  to  one  who  knew  little  of  Oxford, 
scarcely  intelligible.  During  the  course  of  the 
meal,  at  which  Creighton  scintillated  with  easy 
mastery,  I  caught  his  hawk's  eye  fall  upon  me  once 


Mandell  Creighton  173 

or  twice  ;  and  when  it  was  over,  and  the  ladies  had 
left  us,  he  quitted  his  own  friends,  and  coming  over 
to  me  proposed  a  walk  in  the  garden.  I  cannot  say 
that  this  brilliant  clergyman,  of  doubtful  age  and 
intimidating  reputation,  was  quite  the  companion  I 
should  have  ventured  to  choose.  But  we  descended 
on  to  the  greensward  ;  and  as,  through  that  long 
golden  afternoon,  we  walked  up  and  down  the 
oblong  garden,  I  gave  myself  more  and  more 
unreservedly  to  the  charm  of  my  magnetic  com- 
panion, to  his  serious  wit  and  whimsical  wisdom,  to 
the  directness  of  his  sympathy,  and  to  the  firmness 
of  his  grasp  of  the  cord  of  life.  I  was  conscious 
of  an  irresistible  intuition  that  this  was  one  of  the 
best  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men 
whom  I  was  ever  likely  to  meet ;  and  our  friendship 
began  in  that  hour. 

II 

From  the  first  it  seemed  inevitable  to  count 
Creighton  among  men  of  letters,  and  yet  the 
outward  evidence  of  his  literary  life  was  very  scanty 
to  the  close  of  his  Oxford  period.  In  all  his  spare 
time  he  was  preparing  for  his  future  work,  and 
perhaps  he  was  already  publishing  anonymously 
some  of  his  papers  ;  but  the  fact  remains  that  his 
name  did  not  appear  on  a  title-page  until  he  was 
leaving  Oxford,  in  1875.  I  fancy  that  the  difficulty 
he  found  in  concentrating  his  attention  on  literature 
was  one  of  several  reasons  which  so  suddenly  took 


174  Portraits  and  Sketches 

him  to  Northumberland  in  that  year.  He  had 
already  begun  to  plan  his  u  agnum  opus,  "The 
History  of  the  Papacy,"  but  he  was  struck  with  the 
impossibility  of  combining  the  proper  composition 
of  such  a  work  with  the  incessant  duties  of  a 
college  tutor.  Hence,  to  most  people's  intense 
surprise,  it  was  one  day  abruptly  announced  that 
Creighton  had  accepted  the  remote  vicarage  of 
Embleton.  He  had  given  no  one  an  opportunity  of 
advising  him  against  the  step,  but  it  was  known 
that  he  had  strengthened  his  determination  by 
taking  counsel  with  Henry  Smith.  That  wisest  of 
men  had  urged  upon  him  the  necessity,  if  he  was 
to  enlarge  his  sphere  of  activity,  and  to  rise  to  a 
really  commanding  position  in  the  Church,  of  his 
seeing  the  other  side  of  clerical  life,  the  parochial. 
With  the  academic  side  Creighton  was  sufficiently 
familiar  ;  what  he  needed  now  was  the  practically 
pastoral.  Those  who  lamented  that  he  should  be 
snatched  from  the  gardens  and  classrooms  of 
Oxford,  and  from  their  peripatetic  ingenuities,  had 
to  realise  that  their  charming  friend  was  a  very 
strong  man,  predestined  to  do  big  things,  and  that 
the  time  had  come  when  solitude  and  fixity  were 
needful  for  his  spiritual  development. 

So  Creighton  went  off  to  Embleton  ;  and  one 
remembers  the  impression  among  his  friends  that  it 
was  something  worse  for  them,  in  the  way  of  exile, 
than  Tomi  could  have  been  for  the  companions  of 
Ovid.  But  there  was  a  great  deal  to  mitigate  the 
horrors  of  exile.  In  the  first  place,  Embleton  was 


Mandell  Creighton  175 

the  best  of  all  the  livings  in  the  gift  of  Merton 
College,  and  in  many  respects  delightful,  socially  as 
well  as  physically.  The  vicarage  was  a  very 
pleasant  house,  nested  in  tall  trees,  which  were  all 
the  more  precious  because  of  the  general  bareness 
and  bleakness  of  the  grey  Northumbrian  landscape. 
A  mile  away  to  the  east,  broadly  ribboned  by 
rolling  lion-coloured  sands,  is  the  sea — the  troubled 
Euxine  of  those  parts — with  a  splendid  ruin,  the 
keep  of  Dunstanborough  Castle,  crouching  on  a 
green  crag.  To  the  west,  dreary  flat  lands  are 
bounded,  towards  evening  and  on  clear  mornings, 
by  the  far-away  jags  of  the  Cheviot  Hills.  On  the 
whole,  it  is  a  bright,  hard,  tonical  country,  lacking 
the  voluptuous  beauties  of  the  south,  but  full  of 
attraction  to  a  strong  and  rapid  man.  It  is  a  land 
but  little  praised,  although  it  has  had  one  ardent 
lover  in  Mr.  Swinburne,  that  "  flower  of  bright 
Northumberland,"  that  "  sea-bird  of  the  loud  sea 
strand,"  who  sings  the  strenuous  Tale  of  Balen. 
It  always  seemed  to  me  that  this  landscape,  this 
bleak  and  austere  Northumbrian  vigour,  exactly 
suited  the  genius  of  Creighton.  It  made  a  back- 
ground to  him,  at  all  events  ;  and  if  I  paint  his  full- 
length  portrait  in  my  mind's  eye,  it  is  always  with 
the  tawny  sands  and  dark  grey  waters  of  Embleton 
Bay  against  that  falcon's  head  of  his. 

The  social  attractions  of  the  Northumbrian  parish 
were  singularly  many.  Creighton  found  himself  in 
the  centre  of  a  bouquet  of  county  families,  not  a 
few  of  which  preserved  in  the  present  the  fine 


176  Portraits  and  Sketches 

traditions  of  a  long  hospitable  past.  The  county 
called,  of  course,  on  the  new  vicar,  and  was  not 
slow  to  discover  that  he  was  a  man  of  power  and 
charm.  But  there  were  two  of  the  acquaintances 
so  formed  which  ripened  rapidly  into  friendships 
of  great  importance  to  the  Oxford  historian.  Some 
five  miles  south  of  Embleton  vicarage  lay  Howick, 
the  home  of  that  veteran  Whig  statesman,  the  third 
Earl  Grey,  who  survived  until  long  after  Creighton 
left  Northumberland,  and  who  died,  at  the  age  of 
ninety-two,  in  1894.  Much  nearer,  and  within  his 
own  parish,  he  had  as  neighbour  Sir  George  Grey 
of  Falloden,  Lord  John  Russell's  Home  Secretary, 
and  father  of  the  present  Sir  Edward  Grey  ;  he  died 
in  1882.  With  these  two  aged  politicians,  of  high 
character  and  long  experience,  Creighton  contrived 
to  form  relations  which  in  the  case  of  the  Falloden 
family  became  positively  intimate.  The  old  Lord 
Grey,  although  he  welcomed  the  vicar  and 
delighted  in  his  conversation,  lived  somewhat 
above  the  scope  of  practical  mortal  friendship  ;  but 
his  nephew,  the  present  earl — then  the  hope  of 
politicians,  and  known  as  Mr.  Albert  Grey — was 
one  of  the  most  frequent  visitors  at  the  vicarage. 

At  Oxford  Creighton  had  found  it  impossible  to 
devote  himself  to  sustained  literary  work.  The  life 
of  the  tutor  of  a  college  is  so  incessantly  disturbed, 
so  minutely  subdivided,  that  it  is  difficult  indeed  for 
him  to  produce  the  least  example  of  a  work  of 
"  long  breath."  In  Northumberland  it  was  not 
that  time  was  unoccupied — wherever  Creighton 


Mandell  Creighton  177 

was,  there  occupation  instantly  abounded — but  it 
was  at  least  not  frittered  and  crumbled  away  with 
hourly  change  of  duty.  Hence,  directly  we  find 
him  at  Embleton  his  literary  work  begins  ;  and  it  is 
during  those  nine  Northumbrian  years  that  he 
appeals  to  us  pre-eminently  as  a  man  of  letters.  He 
began  with  several  little  books,  of  the  kind  then 
much  advocated  by  the  historians  with  whom  he 
had  thrown  in  his  lot,  such  as  Freeman  and  Green. 
It  was,  in  fact,  for  a  series  edited  by  Green  that 
Creighton  wrote  his  earliest  published  work,  a  little 
History  of  Rome,  in  1875.  The  next  year  saw  the 
publication  of  no  fewer  than  three  of  his  produc- 
tions, two  at  least  of  which,  "  The  Age  of  Elizabeth  " 
and  "  The  Life  of  Simon  de  Montfort,"  remain 
highly  characteristic  specimens  of  his  manner. 
Meanwhile  he  was  writing  anonymously,  but 
largely,  in  various  periodicals,  such  as  the  Saturday 
Review  and  the  Athenaeum,  to  the  last  of  which 
he  was  for  twelve  years  a  steady  contributor.  In  a 
variety  of  ways  he  was  labouring  to  secure  the 
recognition  of  the  new  science  of  history  as  he  had 
accepted  it  from  the  hands  of  Stubbs  and  Freeman. 
His  own  magnum  opus  was  all  the  time  making 
steady  progress,  and  in  1882  were  published  the 
first  two  volumes  of  "The  History  of  the  Papacy 
during  the  Period  of  the  Reformation."  Of  this  book 
the  fifth  and  last  volume  was  sent  from  Peter- 
borough in  1894.  It  is  a  massive  monument  of 
learning  ;  it  is  the  work  by  which  Creighton,  as 
a  pure  man  of  letters,  will  longest  be  remembered ; 

M 


178  Portraits  and  Sketches 

it  is  such  a  solid  contribution  to  literature  as  few 
scholars  are  fortunate  enough  to  find  time  and 
strength  to  make.  The  scope  of  the  book  was  laid 
down  by  himself :  it  was  "  to  bring  together 
materials  for  a  judgment  of  the  change  which  came 
over  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century,  to  which  the 
name  of  'the  Reformation'  is  loosely  given."  He 
passed,  in  his  five  volumes,  from  the  great  schism 
in  the  Papacy  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Council  of 
Trent.  It  cannot  be  said  that  Creighton's  "  History 
of  the  Papacy"  is  a  very  amusing  work.  It  was 
not  intended  to  entertain.  It  seems  to  leave  out,  of 
set  purpose,  whatever  would  be  interesting,  and  it 
tells  at  length  whatever  is  dull.  It  was  Creighton's 
theory,  especially  at  this  early  period,  that  history 
should  be  crude  and  unadorned ;  not  in  any  sense 
a  product  of  literary  art,  but  a  sober  presentation  of 
the  naked  truth.  Yet  even  the  naked  truth  about 
what  happened  (let  us  say)  under  Pope  John  XXII. 
should,  one  would  have  supposed,  have  been  amus- 
ing. But  Creighton  was  determined  not  to  stoop 
to  the  blandishments  of  anecdote  or  the  siren  lure 
of  style. 

Busy  as  he  was  with  literature  all  through  these 
years,  he  found,  or  made,  at  Embleton  as  much  to 
do  as  would  have  satisfied  most  country  parsons. 
The  temporal  wants  of  his  parishioners  immediately 
attracted  his  attentiqn.  Embleton  has  a  fishing 
suburb  on  the  sea,  called  Craster.  This  was  a 
fever-ridden  village,  sunken  in  dirt  and  negligence. 
Creighton,  disregarding  the  growls  of  the  indignant 


Mandell  Creighton  179 

and  suspicious  fishermen,  took  it  vigorously  in 
hand,  drained  it,  cleaned  it,  held  services  there, 
founded — what  had  never  been  dreamed  of — a 
village  school.  We  used  to  tell  him  that  Craster 
was  his  spoilt  child.  He  seemed  to  hover  about  it, 
washing  its  unwilling  face,  and  combing  its  wilful 
tangles.  One  watched  him  pounce  down  to  see 
what  Craster  was  doing,  and  sweep  along  the  street 
of  it  like  a  winged  person,  ready  to  castigate  or 
caress.  It  was  in  the  school  at  Craster  that  an 
incident  occurred  which  illustrates  the  difficulties  of 
rural  education.  Creighton,  who  had  been  holding 
forth  on  the  errors  of  ordinary  teaching,  took  a 
London  friend  into  the  school  at  Craster  to  show 
how  sensible  and  practical  the  mode  was  there.  A 
mixed  and  straggling  class  came  up,  and  the  vicar 
asked  the  top  pupil  what  is  "  the  female  of  gander." 
One  blank  face  was  followed  by  another,  until  far 
down  the  class  a  dear  little  girl  put  forth  a  hand  with 
"  Please,  sir,  gandress  ! "  Even  Creighton,  with  all 
his  humour,  was  not  at  first  amused,  but  he  con- 
soled himself  by  thinking  that  it  was  "  so  like  Craster." 
But  his  duties  and  activities  were  not  confined  to 
the  hamlets  of  his  own  large  parish.  He  seemed  at 
last  to  have  the  whole  neighbourhood  in  his  hands. 
He  became  the  universal  referee,  the  guide, 
philosopher,  and  friend  of  the  whole  of  northern 
Northumberland.  The  county  was  in  process  of 
ecclesiastical  reconstruction,  and  Creighton  was 
made  Rural  Dean  of  Alnwick  to  help  carry  it  out. 
It  was  presently  formed  into  a  diocese,  carved  out  of 


180  Portraits  and  Sketches 

the  Palatine  of  Durham,  and  Creighton  was  the 
first  Honorary  Canon  of  the  new  Cathedral  of 
Newcastle.  These  titles  were  straws  that  marked 
the  current  of  his  useful  zeal.  By  and  by  the 
duke  consulted  him  in  everything  ;  the  bishop  did 
not  stir  without  him.  It  almost  seemed  as  though 
his  ambition  would  be  satisfied  with  this  sense  of 
local  beneficence.  At  the  age  of  forty  he  was 
content  to  be  simply  the  most  indispensable  man- 
of-all-work  in  a  province  of  Northern  England. 
But  he  was  not  born  to  live  and  die  a  useful  rural 
dean. 

At  no  time  of  his  life  were  the  mental  and  moral 
faculties  of  Creighton  more  wholesomely  exercised 
than  during  the  latter  part  of  his  residence  in 
Embleton.  In  after  years  he  pressed  too  much 
into  his  life  :  he  was  always  "  on  the  go "  at 
Cambridge,  always  rushing  about  at  Peterborough, 
while  in  London  he  simply  lost  control  of  the  brake 
altogether  and  leaped  headlong  towards  the  inevit- 
able smash.  At  Embleton,  with  his  parish  and  his 
extra-parochial  work,  his  private  pupils  and  his 
books,  his  Oxford  connection  as  public  examiner 
and  select  preacher,  and  all  the  rest  of  his  intense 
and  concentrated  activity,  the  machine,  though 
already  going  at  a  perilous  rate,  had  not  begun 
to  threaten  to  get  beyond  the  power  of  the  strong 
and  spirited  rider  to  stop  at  will.  I  was  lucky 
enough,  at  this  very  moment  of  his  career,  to  have 
an  opportunity  of  studying  closely  the  character 
and  habits  of  my  friend.  In  1882  one  of  my 


Mandell  Creighton  181 

children  was  ordered  to  a  bracing  climate,  and 
Creighton  suggested  that  nothing  could  possibly 
brace  more  tightly  than  the  bright  Northumbrian 
shore.  He  found  us  lodgings  in  the  village  of 
Embleton,  and  we  sojourned  at  the  door  of  his 
vicarage  through  the  closing  summer  and  the 
autumn  of  that  year.  Thus,  without  presenting  the 
embarrassment  of  guests,  who  have  to  be  "con- 
sidered," we  saw  something  of  our  fierce,  rapid, 
alert,  and  affectionate  vicar  every  day,  and  could 
study  his  character  and  mind  at  ease.  We  could 
share  his  rounds,  romp  with  his  children  and  our 
own,  and  engage  at  nights  in  the  formidable 
discipline  of  whist. 

Of  all  my  memories  of  those  days — bright,  hard, 
hot  autumn  days,  with  Creighton  in  the  centre  of 
the  visual  foreground — the  clearest  are  those  which 
gather  about  tremendous  walks.  He  was  in  his 
element  when  he  could  tear  himself  away  from  his 
complicated  parochial  duties,  and  start  off,  with  his 
mile-devouring  stride,  full  of  high  cheerfulness,  and 
primed  for  endless  discussion  of  religion  and  poetry 
and  our  friends.  He  was  a  really  pitiless  pedestrian, 
quite  without  mercy.  I  remember  one  breathless 
afternoon,  after  hours  upon  the  march,  throwing 
myself  on  the  heather  on  the  edge  of  Alnwick  Moor, 
and  gasping  for  a  respite.  Silhouetted  high  up 
against  the  sky,  Creighton  shouted  :  "  Come  on  ! 
Come  on  1 "  And  it  was  then  that  anguish  wrung 
from  me  a  gibe  which  was  always  thereafter  a  joke 
between  us.  "  You  ought  to  be  a  caryatid/'  I  cried, 


1 82  Portraits  and  Sketches 

"and  support  some  public  building  !     It's  the  only 
thing  you're  fit  for  ! " 

He  was  particularly  fond  of  driving  or  taking  the 
railway  to  a  remote  point,  and  sweeping  a  vast  round 
on  foot,  preferably  along  some  river  bed.  Thus 
have  we  ascended  the  Aln,  and  thus  descended  the 
more  distant  Blackadder  in  Berwickshire,  and  thus 
have  we  skirted  the  infinite  serpentings  of  the  Till 
from  Chillingham  to  Fowberry  Towers.  But  of  all 
the  wild  and  wine-coloured  Northumbrian  streams, 
it  was  the  enchanting  Coquet  which  Creighton  loved 
the  best.  Mr.  Hamo  Thornycroft  reminds  me  of 
an  occasion  when  he  was  staying  with  me  at 
Embleton,  and  Creighton  took  us  for  a  long  day's 
tramp  up  the  Coquet  to  Brinkburn  Priory.  The 
river  rolls  and  coils  itself  as  it  approaches  the  sea, 
and  to  shorten  our  course,  the  future  bishop  com- 
manded us  to  take  off  our  shoes  and  stockings,  and 
ford  the  waters.  There  was  a  ridge  of  sharp  stones 
from  bank  to  bank,  with  depth  of  slightly  flooded 
river  on  either  side.  He  strode  ahead  like  a  St. 
Christopher,  with  strong  legs  naked  from  the  knee, 
but  he  did  not  offer  to  take  us  on  his  back.  On 
strained  and  wounded  feet  we  arrived  at  last  at  the 
opposite  shore,  only  to  be  peremptorily  told  that 
we  need  not  trouble  to  put  on  our  shoes  and  stock- 
ings, since  we  should  have  to  ford  the  river  again, 
after  just  a  mile  of  stubble.  Gentle  reader,  have 
you  ever  walked  a  mile  barefoot  in  stubble  ?  When 
we  reached  the  foaming  Coquet  again,  the  ridged 
stones  of  the  ford  seemed  paradise  in  comparison. 


Mandell  Creighton  183 

Truly  the   caryatid    of    Embleton   was   forged    in 
iron. 


Ill 

The  call  to  leave  the  moors  and  sandhills  of 
Northumberland  came  abruptly  and  in  an  un- 
expected form.  A  remote  benefactor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge,  and  of  Emmanuel  College  in 
particular,  Sir  Wolstan  Dixie,  of  Christ's  Hospital, 
had  left  a  considerable  sum  of  money,  which  it  was 
now  determined  to  use  by  founding  a  chair  of 
ecclesiastical  history.  In  1884  this  chair  was  finally 
established,  and  all  that  remained  was  to  discover 
the  best  possible  first  professor.  A  board  of  electors, 
which  contained  Lightfoot,  Seeley,  S.  R.  Gardiner, 
and  Mr.  Bryce,  very  carefully  considered  the  claims 
of  all  the  pretendants,  and  at  last  determined  to  do 
an  unusual  thing,  namely,  to  go  outside  the  uni- 
versity itself,  and  elect  the  man  who  at  that  moment 
seemed  to  be,  beyond  question,  the  most  eminent 
church  historian  in  England.  That  this  should  be 
Creighton  offers  interesting  evidence  of  the  steady 
way  in  which  his  literary  and  scholastic  gifts  had 
been  making  themselves  felt.  He  was  not  the 
Cambridge  candidate,  but  Cambridge  accepted  him 
with  a  very  good  grace.  Accordingly  he  returned 
to  academic  life,  and  at  the  same  time  enjoyed  the 
advantage  of  becoming  familiar  with  the  routine  of 
a  university  other  than  that  in  which  he  was  brought 
up.  But,  while  he  was  a  professor  at  Cambridge 


184  Portraits  and  Sketches 

for  seven  years,  and  was  all  that  time  entirely  loyal 
to  his  surroundings,  Creighton  was  too  deeply  im- 
pressed by  an  earlier  stamp  ever  to  be  other  than 
an  Oxford  man  translated  to  the  banks  of  the  Cam. 

At  the  very  same  time  that  Creighton  became 
Dixie  Professor,  the  present  writer  was  elected  to  a 
post  at  Cambridge,  and  for  five  years  we  were 
colleagues  in  the  university.  Creighton's  position 
included  the  advantages  of  a  senior  fellow  at 
Emmanuel  College,  and  he  had  rooms  there,  which, 
however,  he  very  rarely  occupied.  He  took  a  house 
for  his  family  about  a  mile  out  of  Cambridge,  in  the 
Trumpington  direction,  and  he  did  his  best,  by 
multiplying  occasions  of  walking  out  and  in,  to 
keep  up  his  habits  of  exercise.  But  he  certainly 
missed  the  great  pedestrian  activities  of  Embleton. 
His  lectures  were  delivered  in  the  hall  of  Emmanuel 
College,  and  I  believe  that  they  were  fairly  well 
attended,  as  lectures  go  at  Cambridge,  by  young 
persons  of  both  sexes  who  were  struggling  with 
those  cruel  monsters,  the  History  Tripos  and  the 
Theology  Tripos.  But  this  formed,  I  must  not  say 
an  unimportant,  but  I  will  say  an  inconspicuous 
part  of  Creighton's  daily  life,  which  in  a  few  months 
became  complicated  with  all  sorts  of  duties.  The 
year  after  he  came  to  Cambridge  he  rose  a  step  on 
the  ladder  of  clerical  promotion  by  receiving  from 
the  Queen  a  canonry  at  Worcester  Cathedral. 
After  this,  like  the  villains  in  melodrama,  he  lived 
"  a  double  life,"  half  in  Cambridge,  half  in  Worcester. 

The  year  1886  was  one  of  marked  expansion  in 


Mandell  Creighton  185 

the  fame  and  force  of  Creighton.  In  the  first  place, 
Emmanuel  College  nominated  him  to  represent  her 
at  the  celebration  of  the  two  hundred  and  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  Harvard  College,  and  on  this  occasion 
he  paid  his  first  visit  to  America.  This  was  an  event 
of  prime  importance  to  so  shrewd  and  sympathetic 
an  observer.  I  remember  that  he  expressed  but  one 
disappointment,  when  he  returned,  namely,  that  he 
had  not  been  able  to  go  out  West.  He  was  charmed 
with  the  hospitality  and  the  culture  of  the  East,  but, 
as  an  historian  and  a  student  of  men,  he  wanted  to 
see  the  bed-rock  of  the  country.  One  rather  super- 
fine ornament  of  Massachusetts  society  lamented 
to  him  that  he  must  find  America  "so  crude." 
"  My  dear  sir,"  said  Creighton,  in  his  uncom- 
promising way,  "not  half  so  crude  as  I  want  to 
find  it.  We  don't  travel  over  the  Atlantic  for  the 
mere  fun  of  seeing  a  washed-out  copy  of  Europe." 
I  recollect  observing  with  interest  that  what 
Creighton  talked  of,  in  connection  with  America, 
when  he  returned,  were  almost  entirely  social  and 
industrial  peculiarities,  neither  blaming  nor  approv- 
ing, but  noting  them  in  his  extremely  penetrating 
way. 

It  was  in  1886,  too,  that  he  began  the  work  by 
which  he  became  best  known  to  the  ordinary 
cultivated  reader,  namely,  the  foundation  and 
editorship  of  the  English  Historical  Review,  which 
he  carried  on  for  five  years  with  marked  success. 
Perhaps  no  single  book  has  done  so  much  as  this 
periodical  did,  in  Creighton's  capable  hands,  to 


1 86  Portraits  and  Sketches 

familiarise  the  public  with  the  principles  of  our 
newer  school  of  scientific  historians.  At  the  same 
time  he  was  writing  incessantly  in  other  quarters. 
To  the  Cambridge  period  belonged  the  third  and 
fourth  volumes  of  "The  History  of  the  Papacy" 
(1887),  as  well  as  the  "  Cardinal  Wolsey "  (1888), 
and  several  volumes  of  a  more  ephemeral  char- 
acter. Already,  in  the  last  preface  to  the  "  Papacy," 
there  comes  an  ominous  note  :  "  The  final  revision 
of  the  sheets  has  been  unfortunately  hurried,  owing 
to  unexpected  engagements."  Of  the  rush  of  "  un- 
expected engagements  "  his  friends  were  now  be- 
ginning to  be  rather  seriously  conscious.  What- 
ever was  to  be  done,  '"as  of  old  Creighton  seemed 
to  be  man-of-all-work  to  do  it.  One  finds  among 
his  letters  of  this  period  the  constant  cry  of  in- 
terruption. He  has  been  on  the  point  of  finishing 
this  or  that  piece  of  work,  and  it  is  not  done.  "  I 
had  a  bad  day  again  yesterday,"  he  writes  me  from 
Worcester,  "  as  I  was  chartered  to  lionise  the  British 
Association  over  the  cathedral.  Why  do  all  '  asso- 
ciations '  resolve  themselves  mainly  into  ugly  women 
with  spectacles  ?  "  i  see  that  some  of  his  friends 
think  that  the  Cambridge-Worcester  period  was  a 
restful  one  ;  I  cannot  say  that  this  is  how  it  struck 
me  at  the  time. 

It  closed,  at  all  events,  in  1891.  Magee,  the 
famous  Bishop  of  Peterborough,  was  made  Arch- 
bishop of  York  in  January,  and  about  the  same  time 
Creighton  received  from  the  Queen  a  canonry  at 
Windsor.  He  left  Worcester  in  consequence,  but 


Mandell  Creighton  187 

he  never  resided  at  Windsor,  since,  before  he  could 
settle  in  there,  he  was  called  to  fill  the  vacant  see  of 
Peterborough.  Here,  then,  at  last,  he  had  started 
upon  the  episcopal  career  which  was  to  carry  his 
fame  so  far.  He  did  not  accept  the  great  change  in 
haste,  although  he  must  long  have  been  prepared 
for  it.  We  have  been  told,  on  hysterical  authority, 
that  Creighton  spent  a  day  "  in  great  grief,  trying 
hard  to  find  reasons  which  would  justify  him  in 
refusing  Peterborough."  This,  of  course,  is  sheer 
nonsense  ;  this  is  the  sort  of  conventional  sentiment 
which  was  particularly  loathsome  to  Creighton. 
There  was  no  question  of  "grief"  with  him,  no 
ultimate  doubt  that  he  must  one  day  be  a  bishop ; 
but  there  was  cause  for  very  careful  consideration 
whether  this  was  the  particular  time,  and  Peter- 
borough the  particular  place,  or  not.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  appointment  rather  awkwardly  coin- 
cided with  the  earliest  intimation  he  had  had  that 
his  iron  constitution  was  not  absolutely  impermeable 
to  exhaustion  and  decay.  It  was  in  April  1891  that 
he  was  first  known  to  declare  that  he  was  "  rather 
feeble  from  overwork,"  and  before  he  entered  upon 
his  new  duties  he  spent  some  time  of  absolute  rest  and 
seclusion  at  Lo wer  Gray swood,  the  Haslemere  home 
of  his  lifelong  friend,  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward. 

He  entered  upon  his  episcopal  duties,  in  fact,  in 
no  very  high  spirits.  He  took  a  dark  view  of  this, 
as  he  supposed,  the  turning-point  in,  or  rather  the 
sword-cut  which  should  end,  his  literary  career. 
The  first  time  that  I  saw  him  after  his  settling  in  to 


Portraits  and  Sketches 


his  new  work — it  was  in  the  dim,  straggling  garden 
of  his  palace,  late  one  autumn  afternoon — almost 
the  first  thing  I  said  to  him  was,  "  And  how  about 
1  The  History  of  the  Papacy '  ?  "  "  There's  a  volume 
nearly  ready  for  press,"  he  replied,  "  but  how  am  I 
to  finish  it  ?  Do  you  happen  to  know  a  respectable 
German  drudge  who  would  buy  the  lease  of  it  for 
a  trifle  ?  "  "  But  surely  you  will,  you  must  bring 
this  book  of  yours  to  a  close,  after  so  many  years  ! 

Your  holidays,  your  odds  and  ends  of  time "  "  I 

have  no  odds  and  ends — I  ought  to  be  at  this  minute 
arranging  something  with  somebody  ;  and  as  to  my 
holidays,  I  shall  want  every  hour  of  them  to  do 
nothing  at  all  in.  Do  you  know,"  he  said,  gripping 
my  arm,  and  glancing  round  with  that  glittering 
aquiline  gleam  of  his,  "  do  you  know  that  it  is  very 
easy  not  to  be  a  bishop,  but  that,  if  you  are  one,  you 
can't  be  anything  else  ?  Sometimes  I  ask  myself 
whether  it  would  not  have  been  wiser  to  stay  where 
I  was  ;  but  I  think,  on  the  whole,  it  was  right  to 
come  here.  One  is  swept  on  by  one's  fate,  in  a 
way  ;  but  one  thing  I  do  clearly  see — that  is  an  end 
of  me  as  a  human  being.  I  have  cut  myself  off. 
My  friends  must  go  on  writing  to  me,  but  I  shan't 
answer  their  letters.  I  shall  get  their  books,  but  I 
shan't  read  'em.  I  shall  talk  about  writing  books 
myself,  but  I  shan't  write  'em.  It  is  my  friends  I 
miss ;  in  future  my  whole  life  will  be  spent  on 
railway  platforms,  and  the  only  chance  I  shall  have 
of  talking  to  you  will  be  between  the  arrival  of  a 
train  and  its  departure." 


Mandell  Creighton 


These  words  proved  to  be  only  in  part  applicable 
to  Peterborough.  For  the  first  year  his  time  seemed 
to  be  indeed  squandered  in  incessant  journeyings 
through  the  three  counties  of  his  diocese.  But 
after  the  summer  of  1892  he  became  less  migratory, 
and  indeed  for  long  periods  stationary  in  his  palace. 
He  had  resigned  the  editorship  of  the  English 
Historical  Review  into  the  hands  of  Samuel  Rawson 
Gardiner  as  soon  as  he  was  made  bishop  ;  and  for 
some  years  it  seemed  as  though  all  literary  work  had 
come  to  a  stop.  But  by  degrees  he  grew  used  to  the 
routine  of  his  episcopal  duties,  and  his  thoughts 
came  back  to  printer's  ink.  The  fifth  volume  of  the 
"  Papacy  "  got  itself  published  without  the  help  of 
any  "German  drudge  "  ;  in  1894  appeared  the  Hul- 
sean  lectures  on  Persecution  and  Toleration  ;  and  in 
1896  he  published  the  most  popular  and  the  most 
pleasingly  written  of  all  his  books,  his  charming 
monograph  on  Queen  Elizabeth.  Then  came 
London,  and  swallowed  up  the  historian  in  the 
active,  practical  prelate. 

So  far  as  the  general  public  is  concerned,  the 
celebrity  of  Creighton  began  with  his  translation 
to  the  see  of  London,  on  the  promotion  of  Dr. 
Temple  to  the  Primacy  in  January  1897.  It  was  in 
the  subsequent  four  years  that  he  contrived  to  set 
the  stamp  of  his  personality  on  the  greatest  city 
of  the  world,  and  to  impress  a  whole  nation  with 
his  force  of  character.  The  obituary  notices  which 
filled  every  journal  at  the  time  of  his  death 
abounded  in  tributes  to  his  ability  as  Bishop  of 


190  Portraits  and  Sketches 

London,  and  in  anecdotes  of  his  conversation  and 
his  methods  in  that  capacity.  He  arrived  in  his 
monstrous  diocese  at  a  time  of  disturbance  and 
revolt ;  he  followed  a  prelate  who  had  not  troubled 
himself  much  about  ritual.  Creighton  set  two  aims 
before  him,  in  attempting  to  regulate  his  tempest- 
uous clergy  :  he  wished  to  secure  "  a  recognisable 
type  of  the  Anglican  services,"  and  "  a  clear  under- 
standing about  the  limits  of  permissible  variation." 
How  he  carried  out  these  purposes,  and  how  far 
he  proceeded  in  the  realisation  of  his  very  definite 
dreams,  are  matters  which  a  thousand  pens  can 
speak  of  with  more  authority  than  mine. 

But  he  attempted  the  physically  impossible,  and 
he  flung  his  life  away  in  a  vain  effort  to  be  every- 
where, to  do  everything,  and  to  act  for  every  one.  No 
wonder  that  Lord  Salisbury  described  Creighton  as 
"  the  hardest-worked  man  in  England."  His  energy 
knew  no  respite.  There  should  have  been  some  one 
sent  to  tell  him,  as  the  Bishop  of  Ostia  told  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  that  his  duty  to  God  was  to  show 
some  compassion  to  his  own  body.  An  iron  con- 
stitution is  a  dangerous  gift,  and  the  Bishop  of 
London  thought  his  could  never  fail  him.  But  all 
through  1899,  in  his  ceaseless  public  appearances,  at 
services,  meetings,  dinners,  installations,  and  the 
like,  one  noticed  a  more  and  more  hungry  look 
coming  in  the  hollow  cheeks  and  glowing  eyes.  In 
the  summer  of  1900  he  collapsed,  a  complete  wreck 
in  health,  and  w  after  a  very  painful  illness  he  died 
on  January  14,  1901.  The  sorrow  with  which  the 


Mandell  Creighton  191 

news  of  his  decease  was  received  was  national,  and 
the  most  illustrious  of  the  thousands  who  sent 
messages  of  sympathy  was  Queen  Victoria,  who, 
only  eight  days  later,  was  to  follow  the  great  bishop 
whose  career  she  had  watched  with  so  deep  an 
interest. 


IV 

The  character  and  temperament  of  Dr.  Creighton 
were  remarkable  in  many  respects,  and  were  often 
the  subject  of  discussion  among  those  who  knew 
him  little  or  knew  him  ill.  There  is  a  danger  that, 
in  the  magnificence  of  the  closing  scenes  of  his  life, 
something  of  his  real  nature  may  be  obscured  ; 
that  he  may  be  presented  to  us  as  such  a  model  of 
sanctity  and  holy  pomp  as  to  lose  the  sympathy 
which  human  qualities  provoke.  There  is  another 
danger  :  that,  in  reaction  against  this  conventionally 
clerical  aspect,  the  real  excellence  of'  his  heart 
may  be  done  less  than  justice  to.  I  would,  there- 
fore, so  far  as  it  lies  in  my  power,  draw  the  man 
as  I  saw  him  during  a  friendship  of  six-and-twenty 
years,  without  permitting  myself  to  be  dazzled  or 
repelled  by  the  dignity  which  the  crosier  confers. 
To  do  this,  I  must  go  back  to  the  original  crux 
in  the  career  of  Creighton — his  taking  of  orders  as 
a  young  man  at  Oxford. 

To  comprehend  the  position,  one  must  first  of 
all  recollect  how  very  "  churchy "  Oxford  was 
between  1860  and  1870.  At  that  time,  it  will  be 


192  Portraits  and  Sketches 

remembered,  there  was  scarcely  any  scope  for  the 
energies  of  a  resident  don  unless  he  was  a 
clergyman.  It  must  be  admitted,  I  think,  that 
Creighton's  nature  was  not  so  "  serious "  at  that 
time  as  it  steadily  became  as  years  went  on.  I  am 
prepared  to  believe  that  he  took  orders  to  a  great 
extent  for  college  reasons.  He  had  an  instinctive 
love  of  training  and  teaching,  and  these  were  things 
for  which  a  priest  had  more  scope  than  a  layman 
at  Oxford.  There  is  no  use  in  minimising  the  fact 
that  his  going  into  the  Church  caused  the  greatest 
surprise  among  his  friends,  nor  in  pretending  that 
at  that  time  he  seemed  to  have  any  particular 
vocation  for  the  holy  life.  He  was  just  a  liberal — 
one  would  have  said  almost  anti-clerical — don,  of 
the  type  which  had  developed  at  Oxford  towards  the 
close  of  the  sixties  as  a  protest  against  academic 
conservatism.  I  remember  that  Pater,  discussing 
Creighton  about  1875,  said  to  me,  "  I  still  think,  no 
doubt,  that  he  would  have  made  a  better  lawyer,  or 
even  soldier,  than  priest." 

Those  who  judged  him  thus  overlooked  certain 
features  in  his  character  which,  even  at  this  early 
period,  should  have  emphasised  Creighton's  calling 
for  the  sacerdotal  life.  His  intense  interest  in 
mankind,  his  patient  and  scrupulous  observation 
of  others,  not  out  of  curiosity  so  much  as  out  of 
a  desire  to  understand  their  fate,  and  then  to 
ameliorate  it — this  pointed  him  out  as  a  doctor  of 
souls.  And  his  extreme  unselfishness  and  affec- 
tionateness — no  sketch  of  his  character  can  be 


Mandell  Creighton  193 

worth  a  rush  which  does  not  insist  upon  these. 
He  was  always  hurrying  to  be  kind  to  some  one, 
combining  the  bonitas  with  celeritas.  Love  for 
others,  and  a  lively,  healthy,  humorous  interest 
in  their  affairs,  were  really,  I  should  say,  the  main- 
spring of  Creighton's  actions.  Voltaire  somewhere 
exclaims,  "  II  faut  aimer,  c'est  ce  qui  nous  soutient, 
car  sans  aimer  il  est  triste  d'etre  homme "  ;  and 
Creighton,  who  combined  something  of  Voltaire 
with  something  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  would 
have  said  the  same.  It  was  on  the  love  of  his 
fellow-men  that  he  built  up  the  unique  fabric  of  his 
ecclesiastical  life. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  everlasting  question, 
which  never  failed  on  the  lips  of  critics  of 
Creighton — Was  he,  as  they  say,  "  a  spiritually- 
minded  man  "  ?  This,  too,  I  think  we  may  afford 
to  face  with  courage.  In  the  presence  of  his 
lambent  wit,  his  keenness  of  repartee,  a  certain 
undeniable  flightiness  in  his  attitude  to  many  sub- 
jects which  are  conventionally  treated  with  solem- 
nity, a  general  jauntiness  and  gusto  in  relation  to 
mundane  things,  it  must  be  conceded  that  the 
epithet  which  suited  him  was  hardly  this.  He 
lacked  unction ;  he  was  not  in  any  sense  a  mystic  ; 
we  cannot  imagine  him  snatched  up  in  an  ecstasy 
of  saintly  vision.  Creighton's  feet  were  always 
planted  firmly  on  the  earth.  But  if  I  resign  the 
epithet  "spiritually-minded,"  it  is  only  that  I  may  insist 
upon  saying  that  he  was  "  spiritually-souled."  He 
set  conduct  above  doctrine  :  there  is  no  doubt  of 

N 


1 94  Portraits  and  Sketches 

that.  The  external  parts  of  the  religious  life  inter- 
ested him  very  much.  He  had  an  inborn  delicacy 
which  made  it  painful  to  him  to  seem  to  check 
the  individuality  of  others,  and  this  often  kept  him 
from  intruding  his  innermost  convictions  upon 
others.  But  no  one  can  have  known  him  well  who 
did  not  perceive,  underlying  all  his  external  quali- 
ties— his  energy,  his  eagerness,  his  practical  wisdom, 
his  very  "flippancy,"  if  you  will — a  strenuous 
enthusiasm  and  purity  of  soul. 

As  a  preacher  Creighton  improved  after  he 
became  a  bishop.  In  earlier  days  he  had  been  dull 
and  dry  in  the  pulpit ;  of  all  exercises  of  his  talent, 
I  used  to  think  preaching  the  one  in  which  he  shone 
the  least.  But  he  was  an  interesting  lecturer,  an 
uncertain  although  occasionally  felicitous  orator, 
and  an  unrivalled  after-dinner  speaker.  To  the 
end  his  talent  in  the  last-mentioned  capacity  was 
advancing,  and  on  the  very  latest  occasion  upon 
which  he  spoke  in  public — at  the  banquet  given 
by  the  Lord  Mayor  on  the  occasion  of  the  comple- 
tion of  the  "  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  " — 
although  his  face  looked  drawn  and  wasted,  he  was 
as  fascinating  as  ever.  His  voice  had  a  peculiar 
sharpness  of  tone,  very  agreeable  to  the  ear,  and 
remarkably  useful  in  punctuating  the  speaker's  wit. 
On  all  ceremonial  and  processional  occasions 
Creighton  rose  to  the  event.  He  could  so  hold 
himself  as  to  be  the  most  dignified  figure  in 
England  ;  and  this  was  so  generally  recognised  that 
when,  in  1896,  the  archbishops  had  to  select  a 


Mandell  Creighton  195 

representative  of  the  English  Church  to  attend  the 
coronation  of  the  Czar,  their  choice  instantly  fell 
upon  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough.  Accordingly 
he  proceeded,  in  great  splendour,  to  Moscow,  and 
he  did  honour  to  the  Church  of  England  by  being 
a  principal  feature  of  the  show.  He  was  not 
merely  one  of  the  most  learned  as  well  as  perhaps 
the  most  striking  of  the  foreign  bishops  present, 
but  he  was  unquestionably  the  most  appreciative. 
He  made  great  friends  with  the  popes  and  prelates, 
and  he  was  treated  with  exceptional  favour.  The 
actual  chapel  where  the  coronation  took  place  was 
very  exiguous,  and  the  topmost  potentates  alone 
could  find  room  in  it.  It  was  not  characteristic  of 
Creighton,  however,  to  be  left  out  of  anything,  and 
the  other  foreign  representatives,  to  their  expressed 
chagrin,  saw  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough  march 
into  the  holy  of  holies  without  them,  between  two 
of  the  officiating  archimandrites. 

To  those  who  never  saw  Dr.  Creighton  some 
picture  of  his  outward  appearance  may  not  be 
unwelcome.  He  was  noticeably  tall,  lean,  square- 
shouldered.  All  through  his  youth  and  early 
middle-age  his  frame  was  sinewy,  like  that  of  a 
man  accustomed  to  athletic  exercises,  although  he 
played  no  games.  His  head  was  held  erect,  the 
cold  blue-grey  eyes  ever  on  the  alert.  His  hair 
was  red,  and  he  wore  a  bushy  beard,  which  was 
lately  beginning  to  turn  grizzled.  The  clearness 
of  his  pink  complexion  and  the  fineness  and 
smoothness  of  his  skin  were  noticeable  quite  late  on 


196  Portraits  and  Sketches 

in  his  life.  The  most  remarkable  feature  of  his 
face,  without  doubt,  was  his  curious  mouth,  sensi- 
tive and  mobile,  yet  constantly  closing  with  a 
snap  in  the  act  of  will.  Nothing  was  more  notable 
and  pleasing  than  the  way  in  which  his  severe,  keen 
face,  braced  by  the  aquiline  nose  to  a  disciplinarian 
austerity,  lightened  up  and  softened  with  this 
incessantly  recurrent  smile.  Such,  in  outward 
guise,  was  one  of  the  strangest,  and  the  most  original, 
and  the  most  poignantly  regrettable  men  whom 
England  possessed  and  lost  in  the  last  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

1901. 


ANDREW    LANG 

1844-1912 


ANDREW    LANG 

INVITED  to  note  down  some  of  my  recollections  of 
Andrew  Lang,  I  find  myself  suspended  between 
the  sudden  blow  of  his  death  and  the  slow  develop- 
ment of  memory,  now  extending  in  unbroken 
friendship  over  thirty-five  years.  The  magnitude 
and  multitude  of  Lang's  performances,  public  and 
private,  during  that  considerable  length  of  time 
almost  paralyse  expression ;  it  is  difficult  to  know 
where  to  begin  or  where  to  stop.  Just  as  his  written 
works  are  so  extremely  numerous  as  to  make  a  path- 
way through  them  a  formidable  task  in  bibliography, 
no  one  book  standing  out  predominant,  so  his  char- 
acter, intellectual  and  moral,  was  full  -of  so  many 
apparent  inconsistencies,  so  many  pitfalls  for  rash 
assertion,  so  many  queer  caprices  of  impulse,  that  in 
a  whole  volume  of  analysis,  which  would  be  tedious, 
one  could  scarcely  do  justice  to  them  all.  I  will 
venture  to  put  down,  almost  at  haphazard,  what  I  re- 
member that  seems  to  me  to  have  been  overlooked,  or 
inexactly  stated,  by  those  who  wrote,  often  very  sym- 
pathetically, at  the  moment  of  his  death,  always 
premising  that  I  speak  rather  of  a  Lang  of  from  1877 
to  1890,  when  I  saw  him  very  frequently,  than  of  a 
Lang  whom  younger  people  met  chiefly  in  Scotland. 


2OO  Portraits  and  Sketches 

When  he  died,  all  the  newspapers  were  loud  in 
proclaiming  his  "versatility."  But  I  am  not  sure 
that  he  was  not  the  very  opposite  of  versatile.  I 
take  "  versatile "  to  mean  changeable,  fickle,  con- 
stantly ready  to  alter  direction  with  the  weather-cock. 
The  great  instance  of  versatility  in  literature  is 
Ruskin,  who  adopted  diametrically  different  views 
of  the  same  subject  at  different  times  of  his  life,  and 
defended  them  with  equal  ardour.  To  be  versatile 
seems  to  be  unsteady,  variable.  But  Lang  was 
through  his  long  career  singularly  unaltered ;  he 
never  changed  his  point  of  view  ;  what  he  liked 
and  admired  as  a  youth  he  liked  and  admired  as  an 
elderly  man.  It  is  true  that  his  interests  and  know- 
ledge were  vividly  drawn  along  a  surprisingly  large 
number  of  channels,  but  while  there  was  abundance 
there  does  not  seem  to  me  to  have  been  versatility. 
If  a  huge  body  of  water  boils  up  from  a  crater,  it 
may  pour  down  a  dozen  paths,  but  these  will  always 
be  the  same ;  unless  there  is  an  earthquake,  new 
cascades  will  not  form  nor  old  rivulets  run  dry.  In 
some  authors  earthquakes  do  take  place — as  in 
Tolstoy,  for  instance,  and  in  S.  T.  Coleridge — but 
nothing  of  this  kind  was  ever  manifest  in  Lang,  who 
was  extraordinarily  multiform,  yet  in  his  varieties 
strictly  consistent  from  Oxford  to  the  grave.  As  this 
is  not  generally  perceived,  I  will  take  the  liberty  of 
expanding  my  view  of  his  intellectual  development. 

To  a  superficial  observer  in  late  life  the  genius  of 
Andrew  Lang  had  the  characteristics  which  we  are 
in  the  habit  of  identifying  with  precocity.  Yet  he 


Andrew  Lang  20 1 

had  not  been,  as  a  writer,  precocious  in  his  youth. 
One  slender  volume  of  verses  represents  all  that  he 
published  in  book-form  before  his  thirty-fifth  year. 
No  doubt  we  shall  learn  in  good  time  what  he  was 
doing  before  he  flashed  upon  the  world  of  journalism 
in  all  his  panoply  of  graces,  in  1876,  at  the  close  of 
his  Merton  fellowship.  He  was  then,  at  all  events, 
the  finest  finished  product  of  his  age,  with  the  bright 
armour  of  Oxford  burnished  on  his  body  to  such  a 
brilliance  that  humdrum  eyes  could  hardly  bear  the 
radiance  of  it.  Of  the  terms  behind,  of  the  fifteen 
years  then  dividing  him  from  St.  Andrews,  we  know 
as  yet  but  little ;  they  were  years  of  insatiable  acquire- 
ment, incessant  reading,  and  talking,  and  observing 
— gay  preparation  for  a  life  to  be  devoted,  as  no 
other  life  in  our  time  has  been,  to  the  stimulation  of 
other  people's  observation  and  talk  and  reading. 
There  was  no  cloistered  virtue  about  the  bright  and 
petulant  Merton  don.  He  was  already  flouting 
and  jesting,  laughing  with  Ariosto  in  the  sunshine, 
performing  with  a  snap  of  his  fingers  tasks  which 
might  break  the  back  of  a  pedant,  and  concealing 
under  an  affectation  of  carelessness  a  literary  am- 
bition which  knew  no  definite  bounds. 

In  those  days,  and  when  he  appeared  for  the  first 
time  in  London,  the  poet  was  paramount  in  him. 
Jowett  is  said  to  have  predicted  that  he  would  be 
greatly  famous  in  this  line,  but  I  know  not  what 
evidence  Jowett  had  before  him.  Unless  I  am 
much  mistaken,  it  was  not  until  Lang  left  Balliol 
that  his  peculiar  bent  became  obvious.  Up  to  that 


2O2  Portraits  and  Sketches 

time  he  had  been  a  promiscuous  browser  upon 
books,  much  occupied,  moreover,  in  the  struggle 
with  ancient  Greek,  and  immersed  in  Aristotle  and 
Homer.  But  in  the  early  days  of  his  settlement  at 
Merton  he  began  to  concentrate  his  powers,  and 
I  think  there  were  certain  influences  which  were 
instant  and  far-reaching.  Among  them  one  was 
pre-eminent.  When  Andrew  Lang  came  up  from 
St.  Andrews  he  had  found  Matthew  Arnold  occupying 
the  ancient  chair  of  poetry  at  Oxford.  He  was  a 
listener  at  some  at  least  of  the  famous  lectures  which, 
in  1865,  were  collected  as  "  Essays  in  Criticism  "  ; 
while  one  of  his  latest  experiences  as  a  Balliol  under- 
graduate was  hearing  Matthew  Arnold  lecture  on 
the  study  of  Celtic  literature.  His  conscience  was 
profoundly  stirred  by  "Culture  and  Anarchy"  (1869) ; 
his  sense  of  prose-form  largely  determined  by 
"Friendship's  Garland"  (1871).  I  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  saying  that  the  teaching  and  example  of 
Matthew  Arnold  prevailed  over  all  other  Oxford 
influences  upon  the  intellectual  nature  of  Lang, 
while,  although  I  think  that  his  personal  acquaintance 
with  Arnold  was  very  slight,  yet  in  his  social  manner 
there  was,  in  early  days,  not  a  little  imitation  of 
Arnold's  aloofness  and  superfine  delicacy  of  address. 
It  was  unconscious,  of  course,  and  nothing  would 
have  enraged  Lang  more  than  to  have  been  accused 
of  "imitating  Uncle  Matt" 

The  structure  which  his  own  individuality  now 
began  to  build  on  the  basis  supplied  by  the  learning 
of  Oxford,  and  in  particular  by  the  study  of  the 


Andrew  Lang  203 

Greeks,  and  "dressed"  by  courses  of  Matthew  Arnold, 
was  from  the  first  eclectic.  Lang  eschewed  as  com- 
pletely what  was  not  sympathetic  to  him  as  he 
assimilated  what  was  attractive  to  him.  Those  who 
speak  of  his  "versatility"  should  recollect  what 
large  tracts  of  the  literature  of  the  world,  and  even 
of  England,  existed  outside  the  dimmest  apprehen- 
sion of  Andrew  Lang.  It  is,  however,  more  useful 
to  consider  what  he  did  apprehend  ;  and  there  were 
two  English  books,  published  in  his  Oxford  days, 
which  permanently  impressed  him  :  one  of  these 
was  "The  Earthly  Paradise,"  the  other  D.  G. 
Rossetti's  "  Poems."  In  after  years  he  tried  to 
divest  himself  of  the  traces  of  these  volumes,  but  he 
had  fed  upon  their  honey-dew  and  it  had  permeated 
his  veins. 

Not  less  important  an  element  in  the  garnishing  of 
a  mind  already  prepared  for  it  by  academic  and 
aesthetic  studies  was  the  absorption  of  the  romantic 
part  of  French  literature.  Andrew  Lang  in  this,  as 
in  everything  else,  was  selective.  He  dipped  into  the 
wonderful  lucky-bag  of  France  wherever  he  saw  the 
glitter  of  romance.  Hence  his  approach,  in  the  early 
seventies,  was  threefold :  towards  the  mediaeval  lais 
and  chansons,  towards  the  sixteenth-century  Pleiade, 
and  towards  the  school  of  which  Victor  Hugo  was 
the  leader  in  the  nineteenth  century.  For  a  long  time 
Ronsard  was  Lang's  poet  of  intensest  predilection  ; 
and  I  think  that  his  definite  ambition  was  to  be  the 
Ronsard  of  modern  England,  introducing  a  new 
poetical  dexterity  founded  on  a  revival  of  pure 


204  Portraits  and  Sketches 

humanism.  He  had  in  those  days  what  he  lost,  or  at 
least  dispersed,  in  the  weariness  and  growing  melan- 
cholia of  later  years — a  splendid  belief  in  poetry  as  a 
part  of  the  renown  of  England,  as  a  heritage  to  be  re- 
ceived in  reverence  from  our  fathers,  and  to  be  passed 
on,  if  possible,  in  a  brighter  flame.  This  honest  and 
beautiful  ambition  to  shine  as  one  of  the  permanent 
benefactors  to  national  verse,  in  the  attitude  so  nobly 
sustained  four  hundred  years  ago  by  Du  Bellay  and 
Ronsard,  was  unquestionably  felt  by  Andrew  Lang 
through  his  bright  intellectual  April,  and  supported 
him  from  Oxford  times  until  1882,  when  he  pub- 
lished "  Helen  of  Troy."  The  cool  reception  of  that 
epic  by  the  principal  judges  of  poetry  caused  him 
acute  disappointment,  and  from  that  time  forth  he 
became  less  eager  and  less  serious  as  a  poet,  more  and 
more  petulantly  expending  his  wonderful  technical 
gift  on  fugitive  subjects.  And  here  again,  when  one 
comes  to  think  of  it,  the  whole  history  repeated  itself, 
since  in  "  Helen  of  Troy  "  Lang  simply  suffered  as 
Ronsard  had  done  in  the  "  Franciade."  But  the 
fact  that  1882  was  his  year  of  crisis,  and  the  tomb  of 
his  brightest  ambition,  must  be  recognised  by  every 
one  who  closely  followed  his  fortunes  at  that  time. 
Lang's  habit  of  picking  out  of  literature  and  of  life 
the  plums  of  romance,  and  these  alone,  comes  to  be, 
to  the  dazzled  observer  of  his  extraordinarily  vivid 
intellectual  career,  the  principal  guiding  line.  This 
determination  to  dwell,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
sides  of  any  question,  on  its  romantic  side  is  alone 
enough  to  rebut  the  charge  of  versatility.  Lang  was 


Andrew  Lang  205 

in  a  sense  encyclopaedic  ;  but  the  vast  dictionary  of 
his  knowledge  had  blank  pages,  or  pages  pasted 
down,  on  which  he  would  not,  or  could  not,  read 
what  experience  had  printed.  Absurd  as  it  sounds, 
there  was  always  something  maidenly  about  his  mind, 
and  he  glossed  over  ugly  matters,  sordid  and  dull 
conditions,  so  that  they  made  no  impression  what- 
ever upon  him.  He  had  a  trick,  which  often  exas- 
perated his  acquaintances,  of  declaring  that  he  had 
"  never  heard  "  of  things  that  everybody  else  was  very 
well  aware  of.  He  had  "  never  heard  the  name  "  of 
people  he  disliked,  of  books  that  he  thought  tire- 
some, of  events  that  bored  him  ;  but,  more  than  this, 
he  used  the  formula  for  things  and  persons  whom  he 
did  not  wish  to  discuss.  I  remember  meeting  in  the 
street  a  famous  professor,  who  advanced  with  up- 
lifted hands,  and  greeted  me  with  "  What  do  you 
think  Lang  says  now  ?  That  he  has  never  heard  of 
Pascal ! "  This  merely  signified  that  Lang,  not 
interested  (at  all  events  for  the  momen't)  in  Pascal 
nor  in  the  professor,  thus  closed  at  once  all 
possibility  of  discussion. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  we  have  lived  to  see 
him,  always  wonderful  indeed,  and  always  passion- 
ately devoted  to  perfection  and  purity,  but  worn, 
tired,  harassed  by  the  unceasing  struggle,  the  life- 
long slinging  of  sentences  from  that  inexhaustible 
ink-pot.  In  one  of  the  most  perfect  of  his  poems, 
"  Natural  Theology,"  Lang  speaks  of  Cagn,  the  great 
hunter,  who  once  was  kind  and  good,  but  who  was 
spoiled  by  fighting  many  things.  Lang  was  never 


206  Portraits  and  Sketches 

"  spoiled,"  but  he  was  injured  ;  the  surface  of  the 
radiant  coin  was  rubbed  by  the  vast  and  intermin- 
able handling  of  journalism.  He  was  jaded  by  the 
toil  of  writing  many  things.  Hence  it  is  not  possible 
but  that  those  who  knew  him  intimately  in  his  later 
youth  and  early  middle-age  should  prefer  to  look 
back  at  those  years  when  he  was  the  freshest,  the 
most  exhilarating  figure  in  living  literature,  when  a 
star  seemed  to  dance  upon  the  crest  of  his  already 
silvering  hair.  Baudelaire  exclaimed  of  Theophile 
Gautier :  "  Homme  heureux  !  homme  digne  d'envie  ! 
il  n'a  jamais  aime  que  le  Beau!"  and  of  Andrew 
Lang  in  those  brilliant  days  the  same  might  have 
been  said.  As  long  as  he  had  confidence  in  beauty 
he  was  safe  and  strong ;  and  much  that,  with  all 
affection  and  all  respect,  we  must  admit  was  rasping 
and  disappointing  in  his  attitude  to  literature  in 
his  later  years,  seems  to  have  been  due  to  a  decreas- 
ing sense  of  confidence  in  the  intellectual  sources 
of  beauty.  It  is  dangerous,  in  the  end  it  must  be 
fatal,  to  sustain  the  entire  structure  of  life  and  thought 
on  the  illusions  of  romance.  But  that  was  what 
Lang  did — he  built  his  house  upon  the  rainbow. 

The  charm  of  Andrew  Lang's  person  and  company 
was  founded  upon  a  certain  lightness,  an  essential 
gentleness  and  elegance  which  were  relieved  by  a 
sharp  touch  ;  just  as  a  very  dainty  fruit  may  be  pre- 
served from  mawkishness  by  something  delicately 
acid  in  the  rind  of  it.  His  nature  was  slightly  in- 
human ;  it  was  unwise  to  count  upon  its  sympathy 
beyond  a  point  which  was  very  easily  reached  in 


Andrew  Lang  207 

social  intercourse.  If  any  simple  soul  showed  an 
inclination,  in  eighteenth-century  phrase,  to  "  repose 
on  the  bosom  "  of  Lang,  that  support  was  imme- 
diately withdrawn,  and  the  confiding  one  fell  among 
thorns.  Lang  was  like  an  Angora  cat,  whose  gentle- 
ness and  soft  fur,  and  general  aspect  of  pure 
amenity,  invite  to  caresses,  which  are  suddenly  met 
by  the  outspread  paw  with  claws  awake.  This  un- 
certain and  freakish  humour  was  the  embarrassment 
of  his  friends,  who,  however,  were  preserved  from 
despair  by  the  fact  that  no  malice  was  meant,  and 
that  the  weapons  were  instantly  sheathed  again  in 
velvet.  Only,  the  instinct  to  give  a  sudden  slap,  half 
in  play,  half  in  fretful  caprice,  was  incorrigible.  No 
one  among  Lang's  intimate  friends  but  had  suffered 
from  this  feline  impulse,  which  did  not  spare  even 
the  serenity  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  But,  tire- 
some as  it  sometimes  was,  this  irritable  humour 
seldom  cost  Lang  a  friend  who  was  worth  preserving. 
Those  who  really  knew  him  recognised  that  he  was 
always  shy  and  usually  tired. 

His  own  swift  spirit  never  brooded  upon  an 
offence,  and  could  not  conceive  that  any  one  else 
should  mind  what  he  himself  minded  so  little  and 
forgot  so  soon.  Impressions  swept  over  him  very 
rapidly,  and  injuries  passed  completely  out  of  his 
memory.  Indeed,  all  his  emotions  were  too  fleeting, 
and  in  this  there  was  something  fairy -like  ;  quick 
and  keen  and  blithe  as  he  was,  he  did  not  seem 
altogether  like  an  ordinary  mortal,  nor  could  the 
appeal  to  gross  human  experience  be  made  to  him 


2o8  Portraits  and  Sketches 

with  much  chance  of  success.  This,  doubtless,  is 
why  almost  all  imaginative  literature  which  is 
founded  upon  the  darker  parts  of  life,  all  squalid 
and  painful  tragedy,  all  stories  that  "  don't  end  well/' 
all  religious  experiences,  all  that  is  not  superficial 
and  romantic,  was  irksome  to  him.  He  tried  some- 
times to  reconcile  his  mind  to  the  consideration  of 
real  life  ;  he  concentrated  his  matchless  powers  on 
it;  but  he  always  disliked  it.  He  could  persuade 
himself  to  be  partly  just  to  Ibsen  or  Hardy  or 
Dostoieffsky,  but  what  he  really  enjoyed  was  Dumas 
pere,  because  that  fertile  romance- writer  rose  serene 
above  the  phenomena  of  actual  human  experience. 
We  have  seen  more  of  this  type  in  English  literature 
than  the  Continental  nations  have  in  theirs,  but  even 
we  have  seen  no  instance  of  its  strength  and  weak- 
ness so  eminent  as  Andrew  Lang.  He  was  the  fairy 
in  our  midst,  the  wonder-working,  incorporeal,  and 
tricksy  fay  of  letters,  who  paid  for  all  his  wonderful 
gifts  and  charms  by  being  not  quite  a  man  of  like 
passions  with  the  rest  of  us.  In  some  verses  which 
he  scribbled  to  R.L.S.  and  threw  away,  twenty  years 
ago,  he  acknowledged  this  unearthly  character, 
and,  speaking  of  the  depredations  of  his  kin,  he 
said: 

Ffttt,  dry  might  steml  me,  w?  ma 

And,  hafdl  mj  F*rj  hUL, 

Pd  Uj  me  <nm*  then,  and  amd  still, 

Their  land  torn*  i 
F«r,  mam,  Fve  maist/y  h*d  my  fill 

O'  this  mtrlfi  dim. 


Andrew  Lang  209 

His  wit  had  something  disconcerting  in  its  impish- 
ness.  Its  rapidity  and  sparkle  were  dazzling,  but  it 
was  not  quite  human  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  conceded 
too  little  to  the  exigencies  of  flesh  and  blood.  If 
we  can  conceive  a  seraph  being  fanny,  it  would  be 
in  the  manner  of  Andrew  Lang.  Moreover,  his  wit 
usually  danced  over  the  surface  of  things,  and  rarely 
penetrated  them.  In  verbal  parry,  in  ironic  mis- 
understanding, in  breathless  agility  of  topsy-turvy 
movement,  Lang  was  like  one  of  Milton's  "  yellow- 
skirted  fays,"  sporting  with  the  helpless,  moon- 
bewildered  traveller.  His  wit  often  had  a  depress- 
ing, a  humiliating  effect,  against  which  one's  mind 
presently  revolted.  I  recollect  an  instance  which 
may  be  thought  to  be  apposite :  I  was  passing 
through  a  phase  of  enthusiasm  for  Emerson,  whom 
Lang  very  characteristically  detested,  and  I  was  so 
ill-advised  as  to  show  him  the  famous  epigram 
called  "  Brahma."  Lang  read  it  with  a  snort  of 
derision  (it  appeared  to  be  new  to  him),  and  im- 
mediately he  improvised  this  parody  : 

IfthemUhatlerttinkshekiffb, 
Or  If  the  batsmtm  tKmts  iSt  imleJ, 

They  bum  wit,  fttr  misgmUed  «*Zr, 
Thfjt  toe,  shtllferish  wumutlti. 

I  am  tie  bttsrn**  ndthe  fat, 
\mmthelta1cmdthe1fatt, 

Ike  umpire,  tie  favifism  fat, 

Tie  rtOer,  pitch,  amJ  stumps,  tmJ  til. 

This  would  make  a  pavilion  cat  laugh,  and  I  felt 
that  Emerson  was  done  for.  But  when  Lang  had  left 

O 


2io  Portraits  and  Sketches 

me,  and  I  was  once  more  master  of  my  mind,  I 
reflected  that  the  parody  was  but  a  parody,  wonderful 
for  its  neatness  and  quickness,  and  for  its  seizure  of 
what  was  awkward  in  the  roll  of  Emerson's  diction, 
but  essentially  superficial.  However,  what  would 
wit  be  if  it  were  profound  ?  I  must  leave  it 
there,  feeling  that  I  have  not  explained  why  Lang's 
extraordinary  drollery  in  conversation  so  often  left 
on  the  memory  a  certain  sensation  of  distress. 

But  this  was  not  the  characteristic  of  his  humour 
at  its  best,  as  it  was  displayed  throughout  the 
happiest  period  of  his  work.  If,  as  seems  possible, 
it  is  as  an  essayist  that  he  will  ultimately  take  his 
place  in  English  literature,  this  element  will  continue 
to  delight  fresh  generations  of  enchanted  readers. 
I  cannot  imagine  that  the  preface  to  his  translation 
of  " Theocritus,"  "Letters  to  Dead  Authors,"  "In 
the  Wrong  Paradise,"  "  Old  Friends,"  and  "  Essays 
in  Little  "  will  ever  lose  their  charm  ;  but  future 
admirers  will  have  to  pick  their  way  to  them  through 
a  tangle  of  history  and  anthropology  and  mythology, 
where  there  may  be  left  no  perfume  and  no  sweet- 
ness. I  am  impatient  to  see  this  vast  mass  of  writing 
reduced  to  the  limits  of  its  author's  delicate,  true, 
but  somewhat  evasive  and  ephemeral. genius.  How- 
ever, as  far  as  the  circumstances  of  his  temperament 
permitted,  Andrew  Lang  has  left  with  us  the  memory 
of  one  of  our  most  surprising  contemporaries,  a 
man  of  letters  who  laboured  without  cessation  from 
boyhood  to  the  grave,  who  pursued  his  ideal  with 
indomitable  activity  and  perseverance,  and  who  was 


Andrew  Lang  211 

never  betrayed  except  by  the  loftiness  of  his  own 
endeavour.  Lang's  only  misfortune  was  not  to  be 
completely  in  contact  with  life,  and  his  work  will 
survive  exactly  where  he  was  most  faithful  to  his 
innermost  illusions. 

1912. 


WOLCOTT    BALESTIER 

1861-1891 


WOLCOTT    BALESTIER 

IT  was  early  in  1889  that,  on  an  evening  which 
must  always  remain  memorable  to  some  of  us,  two 
or  three  English  writers  met,  at  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward,  a  young  American  man  of  business 
who  had  just  made  her  acquaintance.  Among 
those  who  then  saw  Wolcott  Balestier  for  the 
first  time  were  Mr.  Henry  James  (soon  to  become 
his  closest  and  most  valued  friend  in  England)  and 
the  writer  of  these  pages.  As  I  look  back  upon  that 
evening,  and  ask  myself  what  it  was  in  the  eager 
face  I  watched  across  the  table-cloth  which  could 
create  so  instant  a  thrill  of  attraction,  so  unresisted 
a  prescience  of  an  intimate  friendship  ready  to 
invade  me,  I  can  hardly  find  an  answer.  The  type 
was  not  of  that  warm  and  sympathetic  class  so 
familiar  in  our  race ;  neither  in  colour,  form,  nor 
character  was  it  English.  In  later  moments  one 
analysed  that  type — a  mixture  of  the  suave  colonial 
French  and  the  strained,  nervous  New  England 
blood.  But,  at  first  sight,  a  newly  presented 
acquaintance  gained  an  impression  of  Wolcott 
Balestier  as  a  carefully  dressed  young-old  man  or 
elderly  youth,  clean-shaven,  with  smooth  dark  hair, 
thin  nose,  large  sensitive  ears,  and  whimsically 


2i6  Portraits  and  Sketches 

mobile  mouth.  The  singular  points  in  this  general 
appearance,  however,  were  given  by  the  extreme 
pallor  of  the  complexion  and  by  the  fire  in  the 
deeply-set  dark  blue  eyes  ;  for  the  rest,  a  spare 
and  stooping  figure,  atonic,  ungraceful,  a  general 
physique  ill-matched  with  the  vigour  of  will,  the 
extreme  rapidity  of  graceful  mental  motion,  the 
protean  variety  and  charm  of  intellectual  vitality, 
that  inhabited  this  frail  bodily  dwelling.  To  the  very 
last,  after  seeing  him  almost  daily  for  nearly  three 
years,  I  never  could  entirely  lose  the  sense  of  the  ca- 
pricious contrast  between  this  wonderful  intelligence 
and  the  unhelpful  frame  that  did  it  so  much  wrong. 
Charles  Wolcott  Balestier  had  just  entered  his 
twenty-eighth  year  when  first  I  knew  him.  He  was 
born  at  Rochester,  New  York,  on  December  13, 
1861.  His  paternal  great-grandfather  had  been  a 
French  planter  in  the  island  of  Martinique ;  his 
maternal  grandfather,  whom  he  is  said  to  have 
physically  resembled,  was  a  jurist  who  completed 
commercial  negotiations  between  the  United  States 
and  Japan.  Of  his  early  life  I  know  but  little. 
Wolcott  Balestier  was  at  school  in  his  native  city, 
and  at  college  for  a  short  time  at  Cornell  Uni- 
versity, but  his  education  was,  I  suppose,  mainly 
that  of  life  itself.  After  his  boyhood  he  spent  a 
few  years  on  the  outskirts  of  literature.  I  learn 
from  Mr.  W.  D.  Howells  that  at  the  age  of  seventeen 
he  began  to  send  little  tales  and  essays  to  the  office 
of  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  He  edited  a  newspaper, 
later  on,  in  Rochester ;  he  published  in  succession 


Wolcott   Balestier  217 

three  short  novels  ;  and  he  was  employed  in  the 
Astor  Library  in  New  York. 

All  these  incidents,  however,  have  little  sig- 
nificance. But  in  the  winter  of  1882  he  made  an 
excursion  to  Leadville,  which  profoundly  impressed 
his  imagination.  The  Colorado  air  was  more  than 
his  weak  chest  could  endure,  and  he  soon  came 
back  ;  but  two  years  later  he  made  a  second  trip  to 
the  West,  in  company  with  his  elder  sister,  and  this 
lasted  for  many  months.  He  returned,  at  length, 
through  Mexico  and  the  Southern  States.  The 
glimpses  that  he  gained  in  1885  of  the  fantastic  life 
of  the  West  remained  to  the  end  of  his  career  the 
most  vivid  and  exciting  which  his  memory  retained. 
The  desire  to  write  earnestly  seized  him,  aryi  it  was 
in  Colorado  that  the  first  crude  sketch  of  the  book 
afterwards  re-written  as  "  Benefits  Forgot "  was 
composed.  Soon  after  his  return  to  New  York  he 
became  known  to  and  highly  appreciated  by  men  in 
business,  and  in  the  winter  of  1888  he  came  over  to 
England  to  represent  a  New  York  publisher  and 
to  open  an  office  in  London. 

Of  his  three  full  years  in  the  latter  city  I  can 
speak  with  some  authority,  for  I  was  in  close  relation 
with  him  during  the  greater  part  of  that  time.  He 
arrived  in  England  without  possessing  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  single  Englishman,  and  he  died  leaving 
behind  him  a  wider  circle  of  literary  friends  than, 
probably,  any  other  living  American  possessed. 
He  had  an  ardent  desire  to  form  personal  con- 
nections with  those  whose  writings  in  any  way 


218  Portraits  and  Sketches 

interested  him — to  have  his  finger,  as  he  used  to 
say,  on  the  pulse  of  literature — and  the  peculiarity 
of  his  position  in  London,  as  the  representative 
of  an  American  publishing-house,  not  merely 
facilitated  the  carrying  out  of  this  ambition,  but 
turned  that  pleasure  into  a  duty.  He  possessed  a 
singularly  winning  mode  of  address  with  strangers 
whose  attention  he  wished  to  gain.  It  might  be 
described  as  combining  the  extreme  of  sympathetic 
resignation  with  the  self-respect  needful  to  make 
that  resignation  valuable.  It  was  in  the  nature  of 
the  business  in  which  Balestier  was  occupied  during 
his  stay  in  England  that  novels  (prose  fiction  in  all 
its  forms)  should  take  up  most  of  his  thoughts. 
I  believe  that  there  was  not  one  English  novelist, 
from  George  Meredith  and  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy 
down  to  the  most  obscure  and  "  subterranean " 
writer  of  popular  tales,  with  whom  he  did  not 
come  into  relations  of  one  sort  or  another,  but 
sympathetic  and  courteous  in  every  case.  He  was 
able  to  preserve  in  a  very  remarkable  degree  his 
fine  native  taste  in  literature,  while  conscientiously 
and  eagerly  "  trading"  for  his  friends  in  New  York 
in  literary  goods  which  were  not  literature  at  all. 
This  balance  of  his  mind  constantly  amazed  me. 
His  lofty  standard  of  literary  merit  was  never 
lowered  ;  it  grew,  if  anything,  more  exacting ; 
yet  no  touch  of  priggishness,  of  disdain,  coloured 
his  intercourse  with  those  who  produce  what  the 
public  buys  in  defiance  of  taste,  the  honest  pur- 
veyors of  deciduous  fiction. 


Wolcott  Balestier  219 

Balestier's  ambition  on  landing,  an  obscure  youth, 
in  an  England  which  had  never  heard  of  him  was 
no  less  than  to  conquer  a  place  of  influence  in  the 
centre  of  English  literary  society.  Within  three 
years  he  had  positively  succeeded  in  gaining  such 
a  position,  and  was  daily  strengthening  it.  There 
has  been  no  such  recent  invasion  of  London  ;  he 
was  not  merely,  as  we  used  to  tell  him,  "one 
of  our  conquerors,"  but  the  most  successful  of 
them  all. 

What  was  so  novel  and  so  delightful  in  his 
relations  with  authors  was  the  exquisite  adroitness 
with  which  he  made  his  approaches.  He  never 
lost  a  shy  conquest  through  awkwardness  or  rough- 
ness. If  an  anthology  of  appreciations  of  Wolcott 
Balestier  could  be  formed,  it  would  show  that  to 
each  literary  man  and  woman  whom  he  visited  he 
displayed  a  tincture  of  his  or  her  own  native  colour. 
Soon  after  his  death  I  received  a  letter  from  the 
author  of  "John  Inglesant,"  to  whom  in  the  winter 
of  1890  I  had  given  Balestier  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction. "  The  impression  he  left  upon  me,"  says 
Mr.  Shorthouse,  "  was  so  refined  and  delicate  in 
its  charm  that  I  looked  back  to  it  all  through  that 
terrible  winter  with  a  bright  recollection  of  what  is 
to  me  the  most  delightful  of  experiences,  a  quiet 
dinner  with  a  sympathetic  and  intelligent  man." 

Our  notices  of  the  dead  tend  to  grow  stereotyped 
and  featureless.  We  attribute  to  them  all  the  virtues, 
all  the  talents,  but  shrink  from  the  task  of  dis- 
crimination. But  the  sketch  which  should  dwell  on 


22O  Portraits  and  Sketches 

Wolcott  Balestier  mainly  as  on  an  amiable  young 
novelist  cut  off  in  the  flower  of  his  literary  youth 
would  fail  more  notably  than  usual  in  giving  an 
impression  of  the  man.  Of  his  literary  work  I 
shall  presently  speak  :  to  praise  it  with  exaggeration 
would,  as  I  shall  try  to  show,  be  unwise.  But  all 
men  are  not  mere  machines  for  writing  books,  and 
Balestier,  pre-eminently,  was  not.  The  character 
was  far  more  unique,  more  curious,  than  the  mere 
talent  for  composition,  and  what  the  character  was 
I  must  now  try  to  describe.  He  had,  in  the  first 
place,  a  business  capacity  which  in  its  degree  may 
not  be  very  rare,  if  we  regard  the  whole  industrial 
field,  but  which  as  directed  to  the  profession  of 
publication  was,  I  am  not  afraid  to  say,  unique. 
He  glanced  over  the  field  of  the  publishing-houses, 
and  saw  them  all  divided  in  interests,  pulling 
various  ways,  impeding  one  another,  sacrificing 
the  author  to  their  traditions  and  their  lack  of 
enterprise. 

Balestier  dreamed  great  dreams  of  consolidation, 
at  which  those  who  are  incapable  of  the  effort  of 
dreaming  may  now  smile,  if  they  will.  But  no  one 
who  is  acquainted  with  details  to  which  I  must 
not  do  more  than  allude  here  will  deny  that  he 
possessed  many  of  the  characteristics  needed  to 
turn  his  dreams  into  facts.  He  held  in  his  grasp  the 
details  of  the  trade,  yet  combined  with  them  an 
astonishing  power  of  generalisation.  I  have  never 
known  any  one  connected  with  the  art  or  trade  of 
literature  who  had  anything  like  his  power  of 


Wolcott  Balestier  221 

marshalling  before  his  memory,  in  due  order,  all  the 
militant  English  writers  of  the  moment,  small  as 
well  as  great.  There  they  stood  in  seemly  rows,  the 
names  that  every  Englishman  honours  and  never 
buys,  the  names  that  every  Englishman  buys  and 
never  honours.  Balestier  knew  them  all,  knew  their 
current  value,  appraised  them  for  future  quotation, 
keeping  his  own  critical  judgment,  all  the  while, 
unbent,  but  steadily  suspended. 

To  reach  this  condition  of  experience  time,  of 
course,  had  been  required,  but  really  very  little. 
Within  twelve  months  he  knew  the  English  book- 
market  as,  probably,  no  Englishman  knew  it.  Into 
this  business  of  his  he  threw  an  indomitable  will, 
infinite  patience,  a  curious  hunting  or  sporting  zest, 
and  what  may  be  called  the  industrial  imagination. 
His  mind  moved  with  extreme  rapidity  ;  he  never 
seemed  to  require  to  be  told  a  fact  or  given  a  hint 
twice.  When  you  saw  him  a  few  days  later  the  fact 
had  gathered  to  itself  a  cluster  of  associate  supports, 
the  hint  had  already  ripened  to  action.  I  may  quote 
an  instance  which  has  a  pathetic  interest  now.  In 
the  autumn  of  1889,  fresh  from  reading  "Soldiers 
Three,"  I  told  him  that  he  ought  to  keep  his  eye  on 
a  new  Indian  writer,  Rudyard  Kipling.  "Rudyard 
Kipling  ?  "  he  answered  impatiently ;  "  is  it  a  man 
or  a  woman  ?  What's  its  real  name  ? "  A  little 
nettled,  I  said,  "You  will  find  that  you  won't  be 
allowed  to  go  on  asking  questions  like  those.  He  is 
going  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  writers  of  the  day." 

Pooh,  pooh  ! "  Balestier  replied,    "  now  you  are 


222  Portraits  and  Sketches 

shouting  !  "  And  no  further  reference  was  made  to 
the  subject.  But  three  days  later  I  found  a  pile  of 
the  blue  Indian  pamphlets  on  his  desk,  and  within  a 
week  he  had  added  the  future  collaborator  in  "The 
Naulahka"  to  the  troop  of  what  he  used  to  call 
his  "  personal  conquests." 

No  striking  qualities,  as  we  know,  are  without 
their  defects.  The  most  trying  peculiarity  of 
Wolcott  Balestier  was  the  result  of  his  rapidity  in 
decisive  manoeuvring.  He  had  cultivated  such  a 
perfect  gift  for  being  all  things  to  all  men,  discretion 
and  tact  were  so  requisite  in  his  calling,  that  he  fell, 
and  that  increasingly,  into  the  error  of  excessive 
reticence.  This  mysterious  secrecy,  which  grew  on 
him  towards  the  last,  his  profound  caution  and 
subtlety,  would  doubtless  have  become  modified  ; 
this  feature  of  his  character  needed  but  to  become 
a  little  exaggerated,  and  he  would  himself  have 
perceived  and  corrected  it.  There  was  perhaps  a 
little  temptation  to  vanity  in  the  case  of  a  young 
man  possessed  of  so  many  secrets,  and  convinced  of 
his  worth  as  a  confidential  adviser.  He  "had  the 
unfortunate  habit  of  staring  very  hard  at  his  own 
actions,  and  when  he  found  his  relations  to  others 
refining  themselves  under  a  calcium  light,  he  en- 
deavoured to  put  up  the  screen."  These  words  from 
a  story  of  his  own  may  be  twisted  into  an  applica- 
tion that  he  never  intended.  In  the  light  of  his 
absolute  and  unshaken  discretion,  of  his  ardent 
loyalty  to  his  particular  friends,  of  his  zeal  for  the 
welfare  of  others,  this  little  tortuous  foible  for 


Wolcott  Balestier  223 

mystery  dwindles  into  something  almost  too  small 
to  be  recorded. 

For  the  ordinary  relaxations  of  mankind,  es- 
pecially for  the  barbarous  entertainments  of  us 
red-blooded  islanders,  he  had  an  amused  and 
tolerant  disdain.  He  rode  a  little,  but  he  had  no 
care  for  any  other  sort  of  exercise.  He  played 
no  games,  he  followed  no  species  of  sport.  His 
whole  soul  burned  in  his  enterprises,  in  his  vast 
industrial  dreams.  If  he  tried  golf,  it  was  because 
he  was  fond  of  Mr.  Norris  ;  if  he  discussed  agri- 
culture and  Wessex,  it  was  because  that  was  the 
way  to  the  heart  of  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy.  Nothing 
came  amiss  to  him  in  conversation,  and  he  was  so 
apt  a  learner  that  he  would  talk  charmingly  of 
politics,  of  wine,  of  history,  even  of  the  fine  arts. 
But  only  three  things  really  occupied  his  mind — 
the  picturesque  procession  of  the  democratic  life 
of  to-day,  the  features  and  fortunes  of  his  friends, 
and  those  commercial  adventures  for  the  conduct 
of  which  he  had  so  extraordinary  a  genius. 

It  is  by  design  that  I  have  not  spoken  hitherto 
of  his  own  literary  productions.  It  would  be  easier, 
I  think,  to  exaggerate  their  positive  value  than  to 
overrate  the  value  of  the  man  who  wrote  them. 
The  three  novels  which  he  published  in  America 
("  A  Patent  Philtre,"  1884  ;  "  A  Fair  Device,"  1884  ; 
"  A  Victorious  Defeat,"  1886)  were  the  outcome  of 
an  admiration  for  the  later  novels  of  Mr.  W.  D. 
H owells,  but  they  had  not  the  merit  even  of  being 
good  imitations.  Balestier  was  conscious  of  their 


224  Portraits  and  Sketches 

weakness,  and  he  deliberately  set  himself  to  forget 
them.  Meanwhile  the  large  issues  of  life  in  the  West 
and  its  social  peculiarities  fascinated  him.  The  result 
of  his  study  of  the  Leadville  of  1885  will  be  found  in 
a  novel  called  "  Benefits  Forgot,"  which  was  finished 
in  1890,  and  published  in  1892.  During  the  last 
year  of  his  life  Wolcott  Balestier  took  to  com- 
position again  with  much  fervour  and  assiduity. 
There  is  no  question  that  his  intimate  friendship 
with  so  eager  and  brilliant  a  writer  of  tales  as  Mr. 
Rudyard  Kipling,  who,  as  is  known,  became  his 
brother-in-law,  was  of  vast  service  to  him.  The 
short  stories  of  his  last  year  showed  a  remark- 
able advance.  There  remains  the  part  of  "The 
Naulahka"  which  he  contributed,  but  on  this  it 
is  impossible  here  to  dwell.  What  he  might  have 
done,  if  he  had  lived  ten  years  longer,  none  of  us 
can  conjecture. 

The  melancholy  task  remains  to  me  of  telling 
how  so  much  of  light  and  fire  was  extinguished. 
He  habitually  overworked  himself  to  such  a  degree, 
the  visible  mental  strain  was  so  obvious,  that  his 
health  had  long  given  us  the  deepest  anxiety.  I, 
for  one,  for  a  year  had  almost  ceased  to  hope  that 
he  could  survive.  Yet  it  now  appears,  both  from 
the  record  of  his  family  and  from  the  opinion  of 
the  German  doctors,  that  there  was  no  organic 
mischief,  and  that  he  might,  in  spite  of  his  weak- 
ness, have  lived  to  old  age.  He  was  overworked, 
but  he  never  worried ;  he  was  exhausted,  but  he 
did  not  experience  the  curse  of  sleeplessness.  In 


Wolcott  Balestier  225 

November,  however,  after  some  days  of  indis- 
position, looking  all  the  while  extremely  ill,  he 
left  London  for  business  reasons,  and  went  to 
Berlin.  We  heard  of  him  a  few  days  later  as  laid 
up  in  Dresden.  His  mother  and  sisters  imme- 
diately went  to  him  from  Paris.  The  disease  proved 
to  be  typhoid  fever  in  a  most  malignant  form,  and 
on  the  twenty-first  day,  Sunday,  December  6,  1891, 
he  died,  having  not  quite  completed  his  thirtieth 
year.  He  lies  buried  in  the  American  cemetery  at 
Dresden,  and  our  anticipations  lie  with  him  : 

For  what  was  he  ?     Some  novel  power 
Sprang  up  for  ever  at  a  touch, 
And  hope  could  never  hope  too  much 

In  watching  him  from  hour  to  hour. 

1892. 


CARL    SNOILSKY 

1841-1903 


CARL    SNOILSKY 

AND  SOME  RECENT  SWEDISH  POETS 

SWEDEN  has  followed  the  general  tradition  of  the 
northern  countries  of  Europe  in  the  history  of  its 
poetry.  Its  earliest  writers  of  the  seventeenth 
century  cultivated  the  didactic  verse  then  generally 
prevalent,  and  were  mainly  occupied  in  redeeming 
the  Swedish  language  from  roughness  and  barbarism. 
Such  poets  as  Stjernhjelm  and  Samuel  Columbus, 
contemporaries  of  Dryden,  Malherbe,  and  Logau, 
offered  to  their  readers  little  lyrical  faculty  and  less 
imaginative  passion  ;  they  tended  to  the  diffuse,  the 
verbose,  the  rhetorical,  but  they  polished  and 
sharpened  the  instrument,  they  made  the  language 
of  their  country  one  peculiarly  well  prepared  for 
the  variety  and  harmony  of  the  poetic  art.  Later 
poets  looked  to  France  for  inspiration  ;  there  was  a 
Ronsardist  period  and  an  Augustan  period.  Under 
Queen  Ulrika  Eleonora,  Pope  and  Addison  became 
the  arbiters  of  poetic  elegance.  The  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century  saw  the  arrival  of  Bellmann,  the 
improvisatore  of  dithyrambs,  a  lyrical  writer  of  the 
highest  originality.  Then,  like  her  neighbours, 
Sweden  experienced  a  change  of  heart ;  she  passed 


230  Portraits  and  Sketches 

through  the  throes  of  conviction  of  classic  sin,  and 
conversion  to  romantic  righteousness.  And  all  this 
time  her  language  was  becoming  more  mellifluous, 
more  exquisitely  balanced  and  burnished,  more 
dangerously  perfect  in  its  technical  softness  and 
smoothness. 

For  fifty  years  of  the  early  nineteenth  century  the 
Swedes  distinguished  themselves  in  several  of  the 
highest  branches  of  poetical  literature.  But  by 
1850  TegneY,  Geijer,  and  Franzen  were  dead,  and 
the  lesser  men  around  them  were  growing  old. 
Poets  continued  to  appear,  but  they  made  less  and 
less  impression.  Between  1860  and  1870  the 
decadence  of  Swedish  verse  was  conspicuous,  and 
many  observers  believed  that  it  was  fatal.  The 
language  seemed  to  have  worn  itself  out,  and  its 
facile  sweetness  to  have  become  mawkish.  Of  the 
writers  of  that  time,  few  are  now  read  or  much 
remembered.  Their  poetry  was  orthodox  in  style 
and  tone,  optimistic,  commonplace.  The  best  of  it 
was  remarkable  for  beauty  of  form,  and  certain 
pieces  have  been  kept  alive,  and  will  probably 
always  exist,  by  virtue  of  their  delicate  workmanship. 
But  these  young  bards  lacked  enthusiasm  and 
energy  ;  their  pathetic  and  graceful  verses  had  no 
force  ;  they  cultivated,  often  in  compositions  of 
very  trifling-  melody,  what  they  called  "  idealism,"  a 
pretty  wilful  ignorance  of  all  the  facts  of  life. 

A  natural  consequence  was  that  the  ordinary 
sensual  man  lost  interest  in  verset,  and  a  conscious- 
ness of  a  lack  of  hold  upon  the  public  increased 


Carl  Snoilsky  231 

the  mediocrity  of  the  poets.  An  extraordinary 
prudishness,  tameness,  and  sentimentality  spread 
over  all  departments  of  Swedish  literature,  and  it 
seemed  very  likely,  in  1870,  that  poetry  might  cease 
to  be  read  and  then  to  be  written.  Those  pale 
and  pure  verses,  without  evidence  of  passion  or 
experience,  which  alone  were  in  fashion,  were  felt 
to  be  absurd.  In  the  midst  of  this  decadence,  as 
though  to  arrest  its  ravages,  and  to  make  a  bridge 
over  from  one  vivid  age  to  another,  there  made  his 
appearance  a  lyrical  poet  of  unquestionable  force 
and  fire.  This  was  Count  Carl  Snoilsky,  of  whom 
it  is  hard  to  decide  whether  he  was  the  last  of  an 
earlier  age  or  the  precursor  of  a  coming  generation. 
He  was,  at  all  events,  genuinely  inspired.  Up  to 
that  time  the  best  colour  in  Swedish  poetry  had 
been  but  chilly,  an  arrangement  of  the  hues  of  the 
arctic  aurora.  But  Snoilsky — the  young  Snoilsky — 
was  intoxicated  with  life  and  joy,  clad  with  the  vine 
and  stained  with  the  grape,  a  figure  like  one  of  the 
followers  of  Bacchus,  "  crown'd  with  green  leaves 
and  faces  all  on  flame,"  in  Keats'  glorious  ode. 
This  is  how  Snoilsky  appeared,  about  1870,  to  those 
who  watched  the  signs  of  the  times  in  Swedish 
poetry. 

This  remarkable  man  was  a  Swede  of  Slav 
extraction,  whose  ancestors,  Znojilsek  by  name,  had 
emigrated  from  Carinthia  in  the  early  part  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  family  was  presently 
ennobled,  and  became  distinguished  in  Swedish 
diplomacy.  The  father  of  the  poet  was  one  of  the 


232  Portraits  and  Sketches 

most  conservative  of  the  peers  in  King  Oscar  I.'s 
Upper  House.  It  was  in  an  atmosphere  of  Toryism, 
of  aristocratic  etiquette,  that  Carl  Johan  Gustaf 
Snoilsky  was  born,  in  the  parish  of  Klara  in 
Stockholm,  on  Septembers,  1841. *  We  note  him, 
in  passing,  to  have  been  the  immediate  contempo- 
rary of  Thomas  Hardy  and  of  Austin  Dobson  in 
England,  of  Sully  Prudhomme  and  of  Heredia  in 
France.  The  early  life  of  Count  Snoilsky  was  not 
distinguished  from  those  of  most  young  noblemen 
of  fortune  who  are  destined  from  childhood  for 
the  service  of  the  State.  He  began,  however,  quite 
soon  to  rhyme,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty  produced 
a  volume  of  "  Short  Poems,"  under  the  pseudonym 
which  he  long  preserved,  of  Sven  Trost.  This 
collection  is  sentimental  and  melancholy ;  we  see 
in  it  the  influence  of  current  Swedish  verse  and 
some  imitation  of  Heine. 

When,  however,  Sven  Trost  had  recovered  from 
the  infantile  malady  of  sentiment  which  the  publica- 
tion of  his  first  volume  brought  to  a  crisis,  he  rapidly 
developed  in  an  independent  direction.  The  lyrical 
work  of  that  period  in  Sweden  was  concentrated  in  a 
company  of  friends,  lovers  of  romantic  false  names, 
who  were  known  as  the  Signatures.  Among  them 
Sven  Trost  had  taken  his  place,  and  he  continued  to 
contribute  to  their  annuals  and  anthologies,  without 

1  Karl  Warburg,  perhaps  the  first  of  contemporary  Swedish 
critics,  has  published  an  admirable  biography,  "  Carl  Snoilsky, 
hans  lefnad  och  skaldskap."  (Hugo  Gebers  Forlag, 
Stockholm.) 


Carl  Snoilsky  233 

recognising  how  completely  he  was  breaking  away 
from  them  in  spirit.  In  1862  he  seems  to  have  per- 
ceived, by  the  light  of  nature,  the  insipidity  and 
flatness  of  the  "  idealism  "  then  prevalent  in  Swedish 
literature,  and  to  have  determined  to  practise,  if  he 
did  not  preach,  what  he  called  "a  healthy  artistic 
realism."  His  second  book,  "Orchids,"  was  a  collec- 
tion of  fifty  poems  instinct  with  sunlight  and  joy, 
flushed  with  the  beauty  of  youthful  exuberance. 
Denmark  was  at  this  time  far  more  richly  endowed 
with  lyrical  writers  than  Sweden,  and  it  was 
Snoilsky's  good  fortune  to  come  under  the  influence 
of  those  enchanting  Danish  song- writers  of  an  earlier 
school,  Christian  Winther  and  Bodtcher.  This 
little  book  showed  great  advance. 

In  1864  Snoilsky  went  to  Italy  for  a  residence  of 
many  months,  and  so  completed  his  poetical  educa- 
tion. He  enjoyed  a  delicate  robustness  of  health,  a 
conscious  glow  of  youth,  and  he  seems  to  have 
cultivated  at  this  time,  with  remarkable 'success,  the 
cordial  epicureanism  which  so  peculiarly  suits  the 
Swedish  nation.  It  took  in  him  that  pleasing  tone 
of  seriousness,  of  tender  sobriety,  which  robs  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure  of  all  its  coarseness.  At  this,  the 
moment  of  his  highest  emotional  and  imaginative 
development,  we  see  Carl  Snoilsky  a  sensitive  creature 
of  quite  irresistible  charm,  aglow  in  Nero's  Golden 
House  at  Rome,  brooding  in  an  elegant  melancholy 
under  the  cypresses  at  Fiesole,  leading  the  revels  at 
Nemi  with  cups  of  Alban  wine,  or  bewitching  the 
rugged  Ibsen  in  his  little  smoky  ostcria  of  the  Via 


234  Portraits  and  Sketches 

Tritone.  All  this  time  Snoilsky  was  living  and 
writing  poems,  such  poems  as  had  not  been  sung 
before,  at  least  in  recent  times,  under  the  pallid 
aurora  of  a  Swedish  sky.  No  translation  can  do 
justice  to  the  qualities  of  the  verse  which  Snoilsky 
composed  during  this  ineffable  pilgrimage  of  youth. 

If  there  be  a  touch  of  weakness  in  the  volume  of 
"  Poems,"  of  1869,  by  which  Snoilsky  first  became 
widely  revealed  to  the  public,  it  consists  in  a  perhaps 
too  dainty  or  comely  conception  of  art,  an  unwilling- 
ness, even  while  coming  closely  into  touch  with  the 
reality  of  nature,  to  accept  anything  which  is  sordid 
or  ugly.  Throughout  Europe  in  that  generation  the 
best  of  the  poets  were  infatuated  devotees  of  beauty, 
and  they  prepared  the  way  for  an  inevitable  reaction 
in  favour  of  ugliness.  But  the  note  of  joy,  of  physical 
ecstasy,  in  the  dancing  verse  of  Snoilsky  was  like 
witchcraft.  It  intoxicated  his  readers,  accustomed 
to  the  staid  melancholy  and  affected  undertone  of 
his  fellow-singers.  He  stood  out  in  the  colourless 
current  literature  of  his  country  like  a  piece  of  scarlet. 
The  opening  stanzas  of  the  book  of  1869  struck  the 
note  which  never  wavered  : 

"  I  bring  grapes,  I  bring  roses,  I  pour  out  beakers 
of  my  young  wine.  Up  every  pathway,  at  every 
cross-road,  I  smite  my  resonant  tambourine. 

"  I  do  not  weary  you  out  of  all  your  patience  with 
insipid  visions  from  the  house  of  dreams.  I  sing 
exclusively  of  what  I  have  seen  and  felt  by  the  aid  of 
my  own  five  wholesome  senses." 

And  all  this  in  a  metre  that  swings  and  dances, 


Carl  Snoilsky  235 

with  its  ripple  of  rhymes,  like  a  breeze  in  the  top  of 
a  pine-tree. 

Snoilsky  returned  to  Sweden,  to  be  sent  away 
again  as  charge  d'affaires  to  Copenhagen,  where 
he  formed  a  close  friendship  with  the  first 
of  recent  critics,  Georg  Brandes.  The  present 
writer,  who  was  in  Denmark  soon  after  this 
date,  recalls  how  enthusiastically  Brandes  spoke 
of  Snoilsky,  and  how  ardent  were  his  hopes  for  a 
complete  rejuvenescence  of  the  poetic  literature  of 
the  North  in  the  person  of  the  brilliant  young 
diplomat.  However,  a  series  of  unlucky  personal 
relationships  seems  about  this  time  to  have  interfered 
with  the  free  development  of  Snoilsky's  genius.  He 
had  married  in  1867,  but  not  happily,  and  his  family 
vexed  him  with  a  persistent  complaint  that  he  ought 
not  to  publish  verses,  as  this  was  an  act  "  unbe- 
coming in  a  nobleman."  Such  a  pretension  can 
excite  nothing  but  laughter,  yet  was  an  indica- 
tion of  the  absolute  absence  of  sympathy  which 
gradually  drained  the  happiness  out  of  a  life  made 
for  amenity  and  joy.  His  early  career  as  a  poet 
closed  with  a  volume  of  "  Sonnets  "  in  1871,  after 
which  it  was  understood  that  he  consented  to  bow  to 
the  anti-poetical  prejudices  of  his  family.  These 
sonnets  are  acknowledged  to  be  the  finest  hitherto 
published  in  Swedish. 

Snoilsky's  withdrawal  from  the  poetic  art  was, 
however,  even  now,  rather  relative  than  positive.  He 
was  engaged  on  a  translation  of  the  Shorter  Poems 
of  Goethe  ;  and  original  compositions  of  his  own 


236  Portraits  and  Sketches 

appeared,  although  rarely,  and  with  manifest  signs  of 
a  cessation  of  the  old  fire  and  enthusiasm.  He  was 
unhappy,  dissatisfied,  and  life  no  longer  offered  him 
its  grapes  and  its  roses.  In  the  spring  of  1879 
Sweden  was  thrilled  by  the  news  that  Count  Carl 
Snoilsky  had  left  Stockholm,  throwing  up  all  his 
appointments  and  engagements,  and  that  he  was 
accompanied  in  his  flight  to  Italy  by  one  of  the 
leaders  of  aristocratic  Swedish  society,  the  Countess 
Ebba  Piper.  For  a  long  time  they  were  lost  to  the 
circle  of  their  friends  "  more  than  if  they  had  been 
dead."  But  in  1880,  the  way  having  been  made 
clear  for  them,  the  intrepid  lovers  were  married  at 
Marseilles,  and  the  oppression  of  the  last  ten  years 
seemed  to  be  removed  from  the  poet's  inspiration. 
Snoilsky  entered  on  his  second  poetic  period.  His 
wife  and  he  went  over  to  Africa,  and  spent  many 
months  in  a  slow  pilgrimage  through  Algeria  and 
Tunis,  returning  to  Italy  and  ultimately  settling  in 
Florence.  In  1881  his  "  New  Poems  "  revealed  to 
Swedish  readers  what  may  almost  be  called  a  new 
poet,  no  longer  a  fiery,  spontaneous,  and  dionysiac 
improvisatore,  perhaps,  but  a  bard  completely  master 
of  a  grave,  sonorous  instrument.  Snoilsky  wrote  in 
a  private  letter  at  this  time  :  "  The  art  of  poetry 
has  hitherto  been  a  game  to  me.  Now  I  am 
more  and  more  penetrated  by  a  sense  of  its  deep 
seriousness  and  significance,  and  by  a  conviction 
that  it  is  the  real  business  of  my  life." 

Engaged    in    literary   work,    Snoilsky   remained 
abroad,  chiefly  in  Dresden,  until  1885,  when,  after 


Carl  Snoilsky  237 

a  visit  to  Finland,  he  was  persuaded  to  return  for  a 
few  weeks'  visit  to  Stockholm.  The  warmth  of  the 
reception  which  he  received  startled  and  touched 
him.  The  students  arranged  a  festival  in  his 
honour;  the  King — Oscar  II.,  himself  a  poet  of 
renown — was  graciousness  incarnate.  But  Snoilsky 
could  not  be  prevailed  upon  to  stay  ;  Dresden,  he 
declared,  had  become  his  home.  However,  the 
fascination  of  the  Fatherland  became  more  and 
more  overpowering,  and  few  years  now  passed  in 
the  course  of  which  the  Snoilskys  did  not  visit 
Sweden.  In  the  autumn  of  1890  his  Byronic  exile 
of  nearly  twelve  years  came  formally  to  an  end, 
when  the  poet  accepted  the  post  of  Chief  Librarian 
in  the  Royal  Library  of  Stockholm.  He  wrote  but 
little,  and  but  little  of  that  in  verse,  after  his  return 
to  settle  in  his  native  land.  The  remainder  of  his 
life,  spent  in  the  serene  and  regular  performance 
of  his  duties,  and  surrounded  by  the  affection  of  his 
friends,  was  uneventful.  His  health  gave  way,  and 
he  was  removed  to  a  nursing  home,  where  he  died 
on  May  19,  1903. 

Although  Snoilsky  lived  far  into  the  revival  of 
Swedish  literature,  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  showed 
much  comprehension  of  its  aims  or  sympathy  with 
its  movement.  That,  perhaps,  was  more  than  could 
be  expected  from  a  man  of  his  character  and  ante- 
cedents. His  own  style  had  been  definitely  formed 
in  the  sixties,  and  there  was  much  in  the  intel- 
lectual revolution  of  the  eighties  which  could  not 
but  be  distasteful  to  him.  With  all  the  beautiful 


238  Portraits  and  Sketches 

qualities  of  his  art,  Snoilsky  was  deeply  impregnated 
with  the  epicureanism  which  was  typical  of  culti- 
vated thought  in  Sweden  during  his  youth,  and  he 
was  not  inclined  to  embrace  the  violent  and  sinister 
innovations  of  Strindberg  and  his  followers.  About 
1880,  outside  his  own  practice,  the  vogue  of  verse 
in  Sweden  rapidly  declined  ;  the  darkest  hour  lasted 
from  1885  to  1890,  when  Swedish  poetry  was 
nearer  total  extinction  than  it  had  been  for  a  couple 
of  centuries.  The  new  poetry,  which  came  into  being 
about  the  year  1891,  was  manifested,  almost  simul- 
taneously, in  the  works  of  three  very  great  lyrical 
artists,  in  whose  hands  Swedish  verse  once  more 
rose  to  its  proper  eminence.  These  three  poets 
were  Eroding,  Levertin,  and  Heidenstam.  It  is 
worthy  of  notice  that  the  exhibition  of  this  new 
energy  in  Swedish  poetry  was  almost  exactly 
coincident  with  the  return  of  Snoilsky  from  exile  to 
take  up  his  official  duties  at  Stockholm. 

Few  writers  defy  translation  into  a  foreign 
language  more  completely  than  Gustaf  Eroding 
who  combines  with  a  conscious  study  of  the 
methods  of  the  Northern  folk-song  a  spontaneous 
lyrical  elaboration  of  language  and  a  buoyancy  of 
metre  which  make  his  poems  as  difficult  as  they  are 
fascinating.  Froding,  who  was  born  in  1860,  died 
on  February  8,  1911  ;  for  ten  years  he  was  in  the 
retirement  of  a  hospital  at  Upsala.  His  brilliant 
and  meteoric  career  was  practically  confined  within 
the  brief  years  from  1890  to  1898.  "Guitar  and 
Harmonica,"  "  Flashes  and  Patches,"  and  equally 


Carl  Snoilsky  239 

eccentric  titles  to  Froding's  successive  volumes  of 
verse,  indicate  the  irregularity  of  his  taste,  in  which 
something  of  Burns  is  combined  with  more  than  a 
touch  of  Baudelaire,  and  with  a  wildness,  some- 
times very  ghastly  and  sinister,  which  is  wholly  his 
own.  But  he  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  purely 
lyrical  writer  of  modern  Sweden. 

In  Oscar  Levertin  there  was  less  phosphores- 
cence and  more  witchery ;  he  was  not  such  an 
improvisatore  as  Froding,  but  a  finer  craftsman. 
He  was  a  Jew  of  Frisian  extraction,  born  in 
Ostergotland  in  1862.  He  had  attained  great 
eminence  as  a  prose-writer,  particularly  in  historical 
criticism,  before  his  superb  talent  as  a  poet  was 
revealed  in  1891  by  the  publication  of  his  "  Legends 
and  Songs."  This  volume,  which  he  wrote  at  Davos 
while  waiting  for  what  he  believed  would  be  a 
hopeless  struggle  with  consumption,  produced  a 
great  sensation  in  Sweden.  It  has  been  said  that 
the  new  epoch  in  Swedish  poetry  dates  from  the 
appearance  of  that  volume.  Levertin's  use  of 
language  is  magical,  and  his  lyrics  give  a  poignant 
expression  to  those  feelings  of  frustrated  passion 
and  disillusioned  longing  which  are  so  charac- 
teristic of  the  latest  generation  of  Northerners. 
Levertin  died  in  Stockholm  in  1906. 

Verner  von  Heidenstam,  who  was  born  in  1859, 
was  the  author  of  early  poems  of  great  beauty  and 
originality,  but  he  has  now  become  principally 
known  as  a  prose-writer  whose  monumental  simpli- 
city and  classic  beauty  of  style  leave  him  without  a 


240  Portraits  and  Sketches 

rival  among  his  contemporaries.  Per  Hallstrom, 
born  in  1866,  was  one  of  those  who  were  started  on 
their  poetical  career  by  the  revival  of  1891 ;  but  he 
has  written  very  little  verse.  He  is  known  as  a 
novelist  of  singularly  penetrative  fancy,  and  as  a 
master  of  detail  in  observation.  The  production  of 
poetry,  as  we  understand  it,  is  not  very  abundant  in 
Sweden  to-day.  The  word  diktare,  like  dichter  in 
German,  does  not  mean  poet  in  our  English  sense,  a 
writer  in  verse,  but  an  imaginative  author  generally. 
A  novelist  is  call  a  diktare.  But  the  Swedish 
language  has  a  word,  skald,  which  seems  to  answer 
precisely  to  the  English  word  poet.  It  is  needful  to 
remember  this  in  dealing  with  Swedish  literature, 
or  offence  may  be  given  by  denying  the  title  of  poet 
to  very  distinguished  masters  of  prose. 

The  new  literature  of  Sweden  is  largely  naturalistic, 
but  in  the  new  poetry  of  Sweden  there  is  more  than 
a  trace  of  mysticism,  which  gives  a  strange  perfume 
to  the  realism  of  such  austere  writers  as  Strindberg 
and  Hallstrom,  as  well  as  to  the  more  romantic 
idealism  of  Verner  von  Heidenstam  and  Selma 
Lagerlof.  But,  whatever  their  individual  tendencies, 
these  new  writers,  whether  in  prose  or  verse, 
distinguish  themselves  by  the  vigour  and  the 
novelty  which  they  have  reintroduced  into  the 
somewhat  exhausted  literature  of  their  country ; 
and  in  this  admirable  labour  it  is  manifest  that 
Snoilsky  was  the  direct  pioneer  of  them  all. 

1911. 


EUGENE    MELCHIOR    DE 

VOGUE 

1848-1910 


EUGENE  MELCHIOR  DE 
VOGUE 

IN  these  days,  when  competent  literary  work  is 
carried  out  punctually  and  monotonously  by  a  large 
body  of  more  or  less  professional  writers,  something 
more  than  the  technical  excellence  of  what  is  written 
is  needed  to  arrest  our  attention  to  the  man  who 
writes.  The  author  must  offer  some  salient  charac- 
teristic, some  definite  mental  colour  or  spiritual 
form,  if  he  is  to  be  disengaged  from  the  mob  of 
gentlemen  who  sweep  carefully  and  briskly  over  a 
wide  variety  of  subjects.  There  must  be  a  concin- 
nity ;  the  parts  of  a  man's  talent,  character,  history, 
idiosyncrasy  must  be  so  fitted  together  as  to  present 
a  harmonious  and  definite  effect.  In  such  a  con- 
cinnity  the  work  and  person  of  the  late  Vicomte  de 
Vogiid  do  present  themselves.  On  the  crowded 
literary  stage  somebody  always  made  an  appearance 
when  it  was  he  who  entered ;  a  blank  is  manifest 
now  that  he  so  suddenly  and  untimely  quits  it  for 
ever.  In  the  few  words  that  follow,  written  before 
the  leaders  of  critical  opinion  in  France  have  had 
time  to  sum  up  his  qualities,  an  effort  will  be  made 


244  Portraits  and  Sketches 

to  say  how  that  dignified  and  austere  figure  struck 
an  English  contemporary. 

There  was  little  in  the  person  of  Melchior  de 
Vogue  to  attract  the  idle  curiosity  of  the  crowd,  and 
in  consequence  he  was  never  one  of  the  notabilities 
of  the  boulevard.  He  was  independent,  austere, 
rather  cold  in  manner,  aloof  from  the  crowd.  He 
offered  no  affectation  for  the  journalist,  no  eccen- 
tricity for  the  caricaturist.  There  was  that  in  his 
outer  presence  which  transmitted  feeling  with  diffi- 
culty. Full  of  bonte  as  he  was,  he  could  not  give  an 
impression  of  bonhomie.  He  was  timid,  reserved,  and 
conscious  of  his  moral  and  intellectual  superiority  ; 
the  unreasoning  quality  in  his  fellow-men  never 
ceased  to  distress  and  alarm  him.  He  was  the  head 
of  the  younger  branch  of  an  ancient  family,  which 
had,  in  times  past,  scarcely  distinguished  itself  by 
anything  except  its  pride;  "1'orgueil  des  Vogu£  " 
had  always  been  a  proverb.  In  the  eminent  writer 
who  has  now  left  us  the  family  characteristic  took 
the  form  of  a  dignified  withdrawal  from  controversy. 
He  would  not  strive  nor  cry,  but  his  tall,  stiff  figure, 
his  careful  dress,  his  limpid,  penetrating  eyes,  his 
hard  voice  with  the  odd  break  in  it,  all  combined 
to  testify  to  the  imperious,  dictatorial,  and  self- 
concentrated  nature  which  good  breeding  and 
good  taste  held  in  a  perpetual  outward  control.  He 
gave  a  sustained  impression  of  suavity  and  serenity 
The  ideal  of  Melchior  de  VogU6  was  one  of  pure, 
unimpassioned  intellectuality.  His  central  ambition 
was  to  rule  by  sheer  mental  predominance.  He  was 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue        245 

not  indifferent  to  the  passions  of  the  hour,  but  he 
preferred  not  to  be  drawn  into  their  vortex.  He 
was  not  insensitive  to  the  sorrows  of  the  world,  but 
he  was  thoroughly  determined  to  stand  outside  all 
the  coteries  which  battled  about  them  in  the  public 
arena.  He  meant  to  help,  but  it  must  be  by  means 
of  a  long  arm  from  outside. 

This  is  the  external  view  of  the  grave  and  punc- 
tilious aristocrat  who  occupied  so  large  a  place  in  the 
literary  life  of  his  time,  and  with  whom,  however, 
even  in  Paris,  nobody  was  ever  known  to  take  a 
liberty.  The  internal  view  will,  doubtless,  be 
presently  expressed  by  numerous  and  ardent  friends. 
Vogue  was  a  stoic,  but  beneath  his  moral  austerity 
there  glowed  a  humanity  none  the  less  attractive 
because  it  was  veiled  by  reserve.  This  cold,  stiff 
man,  who  rarely  smiled,  who  moved  upon  his 
appointed  way  as  though  his  head  were  in  the 
clouds,  possessed  an  inward  serenity  which  was 
founded,  not  on  egotism,  but  on  tenderness  of 
aspiration.  His  peculiar  earnestness  and  power 
were  intensified  by  that  content, 

surpassing  wealth, 

The  sage  in  meditation  found, 

And  walked  with  inward  glory  crowned. 

The  subject  of  his  meditation  was  the  redemption  of 
the  spirit  of  man.  He  found  that  spirit  walking  in 
a  dry  place,  and  he  pondered  long  on  a  mode  of 
leading  it  back  into  the  oasis  of  dreams.  He  was 
faithful  in  hope  ;  sad,  but  never  discouraged  ;  it 


246  Portraits  and  Sketches 

seemed  better  to  do  nothing  than  to  do  what  was 
hasty  or  commonplace.  At  length  his  patience  left 
him.  He  found  that  the  soul  was  being  stifled  in 
the  French  culture  of  his  day,  and  he  undertook  its 
resuscitation.  He  tore  away  the  cere-clothes  of 
pseudo-scientific  dogmatism,  and  he  wrote  (in  his 
manifesto  of  1885) : 

"  A  quoi  bon  vivre,  si  ce  n'est  pour  s'instruire, 
c'est-a-dire  pour  modifier  sans  relache  sa  pens£e  ? 
Notre  ame  est  le  lieu  d'une  perpetuelle  metamor- 
phose :  c'est  meme  la  plus  sure  garantie  de  son 
immortalite.  Les  deux  idees  ne  sont  jamaisseparees 
dans  les  grands  mythes  ou  la  sagesse  humaine  a 
resume  ses  plus  hautes  intuitions." 

This  was  strange  language  in  the  Paris  of  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago,  although  it  may  seem  natural 
enough  to-day.  If  it  is  natural  to-day  it  is  largely 
because  Melchior  de  Vogue  condemned  the  literary 
Pharisaism  which  denied  all  modification  and  all 
intuition,  and  that  jeered  at  the  unseen  and  the 
unobserved.  He  is  worthy  of  honour  and  attention 
because,  in  a  dark  hour,  he  stood  out  for  loyalty,  for 
religion,  for  hope  and  consolation.  To  him  is  due 
the  reappearance  of  mystery  and  illusion  in  French 
imaginative  literature.  Weariness  and  emptiness  had 
fallen  upon  the  fields  of  literature,  and  it  was  Vogii6 
who  called  down  once  more  upon  them  the  dews  of 
virtue  and  beauty.  He  has  been  called  the  Chateau- 
briand of  the  Third  Republic,  and  the  comparison  is 
not  without  suggestiveness. 

Marie  Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogii6  was  born  at 


Eugene   Melchior  de  Vogue        247 

Nice  on  February  24,  1848.  Long  afterwards, 
when  he  was  admitted  to  the  French  Academy, 
it  was  whimsically  remarked  that,  without  close 
examination  of  the  facts,  no  future  historian  would  be 
able  to  decide  whether  he  was  born  under  a  king  or 
under  a  republic,  in  France  or  in  Italy,  a  member  of 
the  nobility  or  a  simple  citizen.  To  these  hesita- 
tions may  be  added  another  :  whether  his  birthplace 
was  really  Nice  by  the  accident  of  a  visit,  or  the 
ancestral  castle  of  Gourdan,  where  all  his  early  life 
was  to  be  passed.  Gourdan,  the  home  of  the  cadet 
branch  of  the  Vogue  family,  stands,  deep  in  woods, 
near  the  summit  of  the  Coiron,  a  chain  of  the 
Cevennes,  in  the  wildest  part  of  the  wildest  province 
of  France,  the  Ardeche.  Immediately  around  it 
the  volcanic  basalt  takes  shapes  of  grotesque  and 
sinister  violence,  which  filled  the  imagination  of 
the  child  with  wonder.  From  his  mother,  a  very 
beautiful  Englishwoman,  who  survived  until  1910, 
Melchior  obtained  his  earliest  impressions  of  an 
exotic  language  and  literature.  He  has  described 
how,  at  a  very  tender  age,  he  fell  under  the  charm 
of  the  vast  and  deserted  library  at  Gourdan,  fitted 
out  in  the  eighteenth  century  with  everything  proper 
for  the  boredom  of  a  nobleman. 

It  was  to  another  source,  however,  as  he  has  told 
us  in  one  of  his  rare  moments  of  self-revelation, 
that  he  owed  the  bias  of  his  life.  He  was  taken,  as 
a  child,  to  see  the  curiosities  of  his  own  immediate 
neighbourhood,  and  these  included,  in  that  noble 
valley  of  the  Rhone,  the  amphitheatres,  aqueducts, 


248  Portraits  and  Sketches 

triumphal  arches,  and  ruined  mausoleums  of  Roman 
Gaul.  It  was  at  Orange,  or  Nimes,  or  Cavaillon 
that  he  felt  "  les  premieres  secousses  de  1'ame,"  the 
earliest  sensations  of  the  majesty  of  the  great 
dead  past : 

"  Depuislors"  (he  continues),  "les  hasards  d'une 
existence  errante  ont  fait  relever  les  visions  pareilles 
sous  mes  pas,  au  Colisee,  a  1'Acropole,  dans  les 
ruines  d'Ephese  et  de  Baalbeck,  sous  les  pylones  de 
Louqsor  et  sous  les  coupoles  de  Samarcande  ;  j'ai 
admire  partout,  mais  je  n'ai  retrouve  nulle  part 
1'ivresse  toute  neuve,  l'£blouissement  laisse  dans  mes 
yeux  par  les  reliques  de  Provence,  par  les  blocs 
romains  tremblants  a  midi  dans  la  vapeur  d'or,  sur 
le  pale  horizon  d'oliviers  d'ou  monte  la  plainte 
ardente  des  cigales." 

Early  he  formed  the  design  of  becoming  a 
traveller.  It  may  strike  us  as  strange  that  one  who 
was  to  be  the  typically  academic  writer  of  his 
generation  seems  to  have  had  no  more  regular 
education  than  could  be  given  him,  in  a  brief 
passage,  by  the  Fathers  of  Notre  Dame  at  Auteuil. 
At  the  age  of  twenty  Melchior  left  "son  chateau 
farouche  "  in  the  Ardeche  and  started  wandering  in 
Italy.  There  the  war  of  1870  found  him.  He 
rushed  back  to  France  and,  in  company  with  an 
elder  brother,  who  was  already  commencing  soldier 
at  St.  Cyr,  volunteered  for  the  front.  He  fought  at 
Rethel,  he  was  slightly  wounded  at  Beaumont  ; 
towards  the  close  of  the  long  and  tragic  day  at 
Sedan  his  brother  was  shot  dead  at  his  side. 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue        249 

Melchior  escaped,  to  be  captured  by  the  Prussians 
and  imprisoned  for  six  months  at  Magdeburg. 

With  his  release  his  practical  career  began.  His 
cousin,  twenty  years  his  senior,  the  Marquis  de  Vogue 
— himself  now  a  member  of  the  French  Academy — 
proceeded  to  Constantinople  as  Ambassador  of  the 
Republic,  and  Melchior,  entering  the  diplomatic 
career,  accompanied  him  as  secretary.  This  was 
a  period  of  awakening  intellectual  energy,  the 
effects  of  which  were  manifest  in  all  the  young 
man's  early  writings,  in  the  inevitable  volume  of 
poems,  without  which  no  prose-writer  considers 
himself  equipped  (in  Melchior  de  Vogue's  case 
never,  I  think,  published),  in  his  impressions  of 
Syria,  of  Palestine,  of  Egypt,  which  were  enclosed 
in  his  charming  "  Voyages  au  pays  du  passe "  of 
1876.  It  was  at  Constantinople  that  his  soul  was 
first  roused  to  a  clear  perception  of  the  eternal 
beauty  of  the  past,  and  he  spent,  let  us  not  say 
that  he  wasted,  months  and  years  listening  to  the 
waters  of  the  Bosphorus  as  they  broke  in  star- 
showers  under  the  secular  cypresses. 

In  the  winter  of  1872  he  visited  Ephesus,  Rhodes, 
Byblos,  Baalbeck,  Jerusalem,  everywhere  intent 
upon  following,  as  though  it  were  a  strain  of 
fugitive  music,  the  perpetual  tradition  of  the  past, 
everywhere  seeking  among  the  ruins  of  antiquity 
for  the  perennial  melody  of  life.  His  earliest 
impressions  are  of  a  gravity  which  may  almost 
make  us  smile,  so  little  have  they  of  the  thoughtless 
buoyancy  of  youth.  But  the  writer  dreaded  in 


250  Portraits  and  Sketches 

himself  as  much  as  he  detested  in  others  the 
juvenile  arrogance  which  breaks  with  bygone 
dignities.  What  he  would  have  said  to  the  Nathans 
and  the  Marinettis  of  to-day,  the  furious  charlatans 
whose  instinct  before  antique  beauty  is  to  shatter 
and  defile,  it  is  perhaps  best  that  they  should  never 
know.  The  earliest  essays  of  the  Syria  and  Palestine 
series  have  the  elegant  naivete  of  unconscious  art. 
They  would  not  have  been  written  but  for  the 
accident  that  a  friend,  Henri  de  Pontmartin,  who 
was  prevented  from  accompanying  Vogue,  begged 
for  a  detailed  record,  and,  having  received  it, 
would  give  the  author  no  peace  until  he  had  per- 
suaded him  to  send  his  letters  to  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes.  In  the  summer  of  1875  Vogue 
made  a  careful  examination  of  Mount  Athos,  and 
the  result  of  this  was  likewise  welcomed  by  the 
Revue. 

From  Cairo  Melchior  de  Vogue  was  promoted 
to  St.  Petersburg  in  1876.  At  the  first  shock  the 
contrast  between  the  South  and  the  North  seemed 
to  be  too  severe,  but  he  speedily  regained  his 
balance  of  spirit,  and  the  problems  of  Russian 
history  made  a  passionate  appeal  to  his  curiosity. 
He  taught  himself  the  Russian  language,  in  which 
he  presently  became  a  proficient,  and  he  threw 
himself  with  vehemence  into  the  study  of  a  people 
which  was  just  beginning  to  attract  warm  sympathy 
in  France,  but  of  whose  literature,  customs,  and 
traditions  the  French  were  still  almost  entirely 
ignorant.  In  Russia  Vogue  found  much  ready  help 


Eugene  Melchior  de    Vogue        251 

and  many  suggestions.  He  buried  himself  in  the 
vast  history  of  Soloviov,  who  was  still  alive,  and, 
unless  I  am  misinformed,  he  found  occasion  to 
attend  the  lectures  of  that  eminent  professor  at 
Moscow.  He  followed  with  keen  attention  the 
archrcographic  and  ethnographic  discoveries  of 
Kostmaroff,  with  whose  enlightened  and  patriotic 
liberalism  Vogue  was  in  full  conformity.  He  was 
led  on  to  study  the  Russian  character  as  it  is 
revealed  by  the  great  imaginative  writers  of  the 
third  quarter  of  last  century,  the  giants  who,  at  the 
time  of  his  arrival  in  St.  Petersburg,  were,  with  the 
exception  of  Gogol,  all  still  alive  and  at  the  height 
of  their  power. 

It  was  part  of  the  remarkable  talent  of  Melchior 
de  Vogue  that  he  was  always  ready  to  accept  a  new 
view  of  life.  He  was  keen  to  appreciate  all  forms 
of  vital  beauty,  however  foreign  they  might  be  to 
the  traditions  in  which  he  himself  had  hitherto 
been  brought  up.  His  spirit  was  from  its  birth  a 
wanderer,  but  it  traversed  the  waste  places  of  the 
world  without  a  trace  of  the  brand  of  Cain  upon  its 
brow.  On  the  contrary,  the  shadow  of  the  pale 
leaf  of  the  olive  was  always  flickering  against  it. 
Vogue,  taking  himself,  as  he  did,  infinitely  au 
sericux,  very  deeply  interested  in  all  the  modifica- 
tions of  human  life,  already  dreaming  of  how  he 
might  restore  serenity  and  faith  to  the  outworn 
intellectuality  of  France,  was  for  a  moment  daunted 
by  the  strangeness  of  Russia,  and  then  violently, 
and  finally,  fell  in  love  with  its  indulgence  and 


252  Portraits  and  Sketches 

simplicity.  In  certain  admirable  recent  studies1 
one  of  the  best  equipped  of  our  younger  critics 
has  dwelt  on  the  great  difficulty  presented  by  "the 
paradoxical  thread  which  runs  through  the  Russian 
character."  Thirty-five  years  ago  this  element  of 
paradox  was  unrecognised  and  undefined,  even  by 
the  Russians  themselves.  It  puzzled  and  baffled 
Vogii£,  with  his  logical  Latin  instinct,  his  perfect 
reasonableness,  his  austere  and  authoritative  temper 
of  mind,  but  it  rather  fascinated  than  repelled  him. 
What  we  have  to  deal  with  here,  however,  is  not 
the  genius  of  Russia  in  itself,  but  the  effect  of  that 
genius  on  the  mind  of  a  Frenchman  destined, 
through  his  assimilation  of  certain  elements  in 
it,  to  exercise  a  great  influence  on  his  own  people. 
Whether  Vogue  really  comprehended  Russia  or  not 
is  a  question  which  I  am  not  competent  to  answer, 
and  it  lies  aside  from  the  present  discussion.  What 
is  interesting  at  this  moment  is  the  fact  that  a 
young  French  writer,  resident  in  St.  Petersburg 
between  1875  and  1882,  carefully  cultivating  a  rich, 
full  style  which  he  restrained  within  the  limits  of 
an  almost  classic  purity,  employed  that  style,  with 
all  its  gravity  of  reflection  and  profusion  of  imagery, 
on  the  interpretation  of  an  alien  literature  which 
was  remarkable  for  the  opposites  of  all  these 
qualities,  for  turbulence,  redundancy,  stubbornness, 
exaggerated  emotion,  and  sensuous  extravagance  of 
fancy.  The  strange  material  on  which  he  worked 

1  "  Landmarks  in  Russian  Literature,"  by  Maurice  Baring. 
(Methuen  &  Co.,  1910.) 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue        253 

not  merely  did  not  affect  his  method  towards  an 
imitation  of  itself,  but  the  more  intimately  he  studied 
it  and  extracted  from  it  what  was  sympathetic  to 
his  temperament,  the  more  were  the  eminently 
un-Russian  qualities  of  Vogii£,  his  serried  thought, 
the  complication  of  his  firm,  ornate,  rather  old- 
fashioned  style,  his  perfect  probity  and  moderation 
of  sentiment,  emphasised  in  the  careful  progress  of 
his  writings. 

It  was  in  the  presence  of  Russia  that  his  own 
peculiar  character  became  developed,  one  would 
affirm,  in  a  peculiarly  un-Russian  direction.  That 
he  was  absorbed,  in  these  early  diplomatic  days,  in 
the  social  forms  and  habits  of  his  adopted  country 
did  not  prevent  him  from  remaining  exquisitely 
and  rigidly  French.  He  traversed  the  vast  empire 
from  north  to  south  ;  he  followed  the  conquering 
army  of  General  Annenkoff  to  Khiva  and  Samar- 
kand ;  he  even  sealed  his  troth  to  Russia  by 
marrying  the  general's  sister,  Anna  Nicola'ievna, 
who,  with  their  four  sons,  survives  him  to-day.  In 
spite  of  all  this,  and  in  spite  of  the  very  strong 
infusion  of  Russian  sentiment  into  his  character 
and  his  strong  streak  of  English  blood,  Melchior 
de  Vogue  remained  intensely  French,  and  the 
principal  result  of  his  study  of  Russia  was  that  his 
familiarity  with  the  semi-Oriental  order  of  ideas 
gave  him  a  weapon  to  use  in  his  approching  fight 
in  the  West  against  the  enemies  of  spiritual  and 
religious  beauty. 

Vogue's  regular  communication  of  Russian  studies 


254  Portraits  and  Sketches 

to  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  with  which  he  was 
identified  until  the  end  of  his  life,  and  from  the 
office  of  which  he  may  be  said  to  have  stepped  into 
the  French  Academy,  began  in  March  1879,  upon 
the  publication  of  his  "  De  Byzance  a  Moscou." 
This  rather  abstrusely  treated  episode  in  Russian 
literature  of  the  sixteenth  century  must  have  struck 
Buloz  by  its  intrinsic  merits,  for  it  was  given  the 
first  place  in  the  review.  It  is  noticeable  that 
Vogii£,  in  describing  the  singular  vision  which 
appeared  to  the  dying  Czar  Feodor  in  1598,  adopts 
the  attitude  towards  the  inexplicable,  the  mys- 
terious, which  he  was  about  to  make  characteristic 
of  all  his  writing.  From  this  time  forwards  for 
more  than  thirty  years  we  may  trace  in  the  pages  of 
the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  in  which  most  of  his 
books  originally  made  their  appearance,  the  deve- 
lopment of  Melchior  de  Vogii6's  critical  powers, 
and  their  gradual  progression,  through  archaeology 
and  history,  to  the  analysis  of  pure  literature  and 
philosophical  politics. 

In  1882  he  quitted  the  diplomatic  career  and 
returned  to  Paris,  to  devote  himself  without  reserve 
to  the  practice  of  literature.  On  October  15 
of  the  following  year  there  appeared  in  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  the  earliest  of  those 
studies  of  the  Russian  novel  which,  in  their 
collected  form,  not  only  did  more  than  anything 
else  to  make  Melchior  de  Vogii£  famous,  but 
offered  him  an  unanticipated  opportunity  for  exer- 
cising a  wide  and  salutary  influence.  It  was  about 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue        255 

this  time  that  he  made  the  acquaintance  of,  or  at 
least  sealed  his  intimate  friendship  with,  Taine,  then 
at  the  zenith  of  his  glory,  and  busily  labouring  at 
his  colossal  enterprise,  the  "  Origines  de  la  France 
contemporaine."  It  would  not  be  exact  to  say 
that  Vogue  became  the  disciple  of  Taine,  for  his  own 
genius  was  by  this  time  too  mature  for  that,  but 
the  probity  and  profundity  of  the  elder  writer  made 
a  deep  impression  of  encouragement  on  the  mind 
of  the  younger.  Vogue  was  attracted  to  Taine  by 
a  considerable  similarity  in  their  temperaments ; 
the  younger  man  was  by  birthright  what  the  elder 
had  become  under  the  stress  of  life,  "  majestueuse- 
ment  triste."  They  had  a  prodigious  subject  in 
common,  the  divagations  of  the  human  intelligence, 
its  poverty  and  its  weakness.  Each  had  indulged, 
in  the  examination  of  life  and  history,  an  ardent 
curiosity  ;  each  had  been  easily  persuaded  of  the 
preponderance  of  suffering  and  of  the  futility  of 
contending  with  it  otherwise  than  by  a' severe  and 
patient  stoicism. 

Taine  became  to  Vogue  a  sort  of  living  con- 
science. At  the  mere  thought  of  any  concession 
to  the  vulgarity  of  the  crowd,  the  younger  writer 
blushed  beforehand  at  the  silence  of  the  elder.  They 
exchanged  impressions  with  regard  to  the  foreign 
literatures  which  each  of  them  loved  more  than  did 
any  other  Frenchmen  of  their  day  ;  and  Vogue"  read 
the  shorter  tales  of  Tourgeniev  aloud  to  Taine 
when  the  latter  lay  on  his  death-bed  (March  1893). 
The  account  of  Taine  which  Vogue  gives  in  his 


256  Portraits  and  Sketches 

"  Devant  le  Siecle "  has  more   human   emotion   in 
it  than  perhaps  any  other  page  of  his  work. 

The  native-born  exile,  returning  to  his  fatherland, 
perceives  alterations  in  thought  and  feeling  more 
emphatically  than  those  who  have  never  stirred  out 
of  the  environment  of  home.  Melchior  de  Vogue, 
coming  back  to  Paris  in  1882,  was  astonished  to 
find  the  men  of  letters,  his  friends,  comparatively 
oblivious  of  the  strides  which  a  positive  utilitarian- 
ism had  made  during  his  absence.  In  the  novel, 
in  particular — that  is  to  say,  in  the  branch  of 
literature  which  appeals  most  directly  and  most 
abundantly  to  the  average  emotional  reader — the 
development  of  what  was  called  "  naturalism " 
had  been  extraordinary.  Encouraged  by  the  extreme 
favour  with  which  the  stories  of  the  Goncourts  and  his 
own  scientific  and  mechanical  romances  had  been 
received  by  the  public,  Zola  ventured  on  a  policy 
of  exclusion.  He  dared  to  close  the  doors  of  mercy 
on  any  novelist  who  presumed  to  admit  into  his 
work  the  least  idealism,  the  least  note  of  pity,  the 
least  concession  to  faith  or  conjecture.  All  must 
be  founded  on  meticulous  observation.  The  imagi- 
native writer  must  be  simply  an  "  implacable 
investigator  eager  to  take  the  human  machine  to 
pieces  in  order  to  see  how  its  mechanism  works." 
This  scientific  theory  Zola  expounded  in  three 
volumes  of  criticism,  "  Le  Roman  Experimental  " 
(1880),  "  Les  Romanciers  Naturalistes"  (1881),  and 
"  Mes  Haines"  (1882).  He  bore  down  all  opposi- 
tion by  his  vehement  sincerity,  and  he  was  much 


Eugene   Melchior  de  Vogue        257 

aided  by  the  fact  that  for  some  years  past  all  the 
cleverest  young  writers  had  been  tending  in  the 
same  direction,  while  the  opposition  of  science  to 
religion  had  been  rapidly  gaining  ground  in 
France.  These  were  the  years  when  the  name  of 
God  was  being  erased  from  the  school-books  of 
Republican  children,  and  when  ardent  provincial 
mayors  were  renaming  Rue  de  Notre  Dame  de 
Bon-Secours,  Rue  de  Paul  Bert,  or  Passage  de 
1'Adoration  des  Mages,  Avenue  de  la  Gare.  These 
were  the  years  when  no  valid  resistance  to  the 
presumptuous  and  exclusive  domination  of  logic 
seemed  forthcoming  in  all  the  realms  of  French 
intelligence. 

Vogue,  examining  what  had  been  published  of  late 
by  the  principal  imaginative  writers  of  France,  pro- 
tested that  the  soul  had  been  forgotten.  Zola  was 
crying  out,  in  his  harsh  and  sincere  voice,  that  the 
novelist  must  teach  nothing  but  the  bitter  know- 
ledge of  life,  the  proud  and  unflinching  lesson 
of  reality.  All  pictures  of  society  were  to  be 
painted  without  prejudice  or  sympathy,  without 
comment,  without  effusion,  in  close  agreement  with 
what  Edmond  de  Goncourt,  in  a  famous  phrase 
called  "  le  document  humain,  pris  sur  le  vrai,  sur  le 
vif,  sur  le  saignant."  There  was  a  great  deal  to  be 
said  in  favour  of  this  cult  of  naturalism,  which, 
reasonably  followed,  was  doing  wonders  in  clearing 
away  the  humbug,  the  dead  flowers  and  last  night's 
rouge,  from  an  outworn  romanticism.  There  could 
never  be  a  return  to  the  old  romantic  egoism,  to  a 

R 


258  Portraits  and  Sketches 

series  of  pseudo-biographies  of  a  generation  of 
Ren£s  and  Obermanns.  The  supreme  value  of 
reality  and  the  absolute  necessity  of  observation 
were  admitted  beyond  all  denial.  But  in  the  course 
of  his  Russian  studies  Vogii6  had  discovered  a  school 
of  realists  who  were  no  less  serious  and  thorough 
than  Zola,  but  who  admitted  far  more  spiritual 
unction  into  their  attitude  to  life.  In  Dostoieffsky 
and  Tolstoy  he  found  great  masters  of  fiction  who 
appreciated  the  value  of  scientific  truth,  but  who 
were  not  content  to  move  a  step  in  the  pursuit  of  it 
without  being  attended  by  pity  and  hope. 

In  1883  Melchior  de  Vogue  began  to  print  his 
series  of  studies  of  the  Russian  novel  in  the 
pages  of  the  Revue.  He  treated  Gogol,  Tourgeniev, 
Dostoieffsky,  and  Tolstoy ;  he  traced  the  origins  of 
the  tree  of  which  they  were  the  consummate 
fruitage ;  he  showed  how  Pushkin,  an  enchanting 
poet,  had  made  the  ground  ready  for  these  giants  in 
prose.  The  subject  was  not  absolutely  new,  of 
course,  to  French  readers ;  it  had  been  treated 
learnedly  and  amply  by  such  excellent  authorities  as 
Leroy-Beaulieu  and  Rambaud.  Some  of  the  novelists 
themselves  were  already  in  the  hands  of  Parisians, 
Gogol  and  the  now  semi-Parisian  Tourgeniev  in 
particular.  But  the  two  greatest  of  all  were  practi- 
cally unknown,  and  it  was  while  Vogue's  successive 
monographs  were  appearing  in  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  that  Dostoieffsky  and  Tolstoy  were  for  the 
first  time  competently  rendered  in  French,  and  in 
this  language  circulated  through  the  instructed 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogiie        259 

world.  All  over  France  there  was  running  at  that 
time  an  increasingly  sympathetic  curiosity  concern- 
ing Russian  thought  and  Russian  manners.  The 
articles  of  Vogiie  gratified  this  thirst  for  knowledge, 
but  it  was  not  until  they  were  reprinted  in  a  volume 
that  their  full  significance  was  appreciated. 

It  was  by  "  Le  Roman  Russe,"  which  appeared 
in  the  summer  of  1886,  that  Melchior  de  Vogiie  first 
became  widely  known,  and  the  "  Avant-Propos '' 
with  which  that  volume  was  launched  on  the  waters 
of  controversy  is  of  all  his  writings  the  one  which 
has  exercised  the  most  lasting  influence.  This 
critical  preface  to  a  contribution  to  criticism  has  the 
extraordinary  value  of  a  manifesto,  put  forth  with 
equal  passion  and  adroitness  at  the  precise  moment 
when  the  reading  world  was  ready  to  accept  it. 
Every  circumstance  connected  with  its  publication 
was  happy.  The  articles  on  Russian  literature, 
spread  over  three  years,  had  greatly  increased  the 
prestige  of  the  writer ;  their  success  had  led  to  the 
introduction  to  French  readers  of  the  principal 
Russian  works  described  ;  those  works  had  been 
read,  were  now  being  more  eagerly  than  ever  read, 
still  with  some  bewilderment  at  their  strangeness ; 
meanwhile  the  naturalistic  theory  of  fiction,  pushed 
to  extremities  by  Zola  and  his  disciples,  had  begun 
to  pall  upon  their  admirers.  France  was  ready  for 
a  new  voice,  a  fresh  wind  of  the  spirit ;  every  one 
was  prepared  to  welcome  a  man  daring  enough  to 
proclaim  that  we  had  had  enough  of  these  dry 
bundles  of  observations,  this  mechanical  pursuit  of 


260  Portraits  and  Sketches 

purposeless  phenomena :  "  Our  living  and  mys- 
terious flower,  the  genius  of  France,  cannot  be 
plucked  by  botanists  who  merely  catalogue  dead 
species  in  their  hortus  siccus." 

The  remarkable  effect  caused  by  the  publication 
of  "  Le  Roman  Russe  " — perhaps  the  most  epoch- 
making  single  volume  of  criticism  issued  in  France 
during  our  time — was  due  to  the  unusual  literary 
conditions  acted  on  by  the  daring  and  the  sagacity 
of  a  wise  and  fearless  writer.  The  Naturalists  had 
pushed  too  far  their  formula  that  we  can  know 
nothing  but  what  we  can  see, and  that  the  inexplicable 
is  the  non-existent.  From  the  dry  positivism  of  this 
law  there  seemed  to  be  no  appeal  until  Vogiie,  who 
had  studied  the  Russians  so  closely,  claimed  to  have 
learned  from  them,  if  he  had  learned  nothing  else, 
that  there  could  be  no  more  barren  error  than  to 
limit  our  affirmations  by  our  exact  and  measured 
experiences.  He  considered  the  theory  of  man- 
kind as  the  Goncourts  and  Zola  conceived  it,  and 
he  was  courageous  enough  to  declare  it  hopelessly 
incomplete.  Beyond  it,  stretching  away  in  infinite 
chequer  of  radiance  and  shadow,  he  pointed  to  the 
domains  of  dreamland,  untracked,  unsuspected 
by  the  authors  of  "  Cherie  "  and  "  La  Terre." 

The  original  object  of  Vogiie  in  writing  his 
studies  of  the  Russian  novelists  had  been  to  draw 
the  two  countries  closer  together  by  the  inter- 
penetration  of  the  things  of  the  spirit.  He  had 
worked  in  certain  definite  zones  of  thought,  whence 
he  had  chosen  typical  individuals;  he  practically 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue        261 

confined  himself  to  the  four  greatest  masters  of 
Russian  fiction.  He  treated  each  of  these  in  the  best 
biographical  temper,  the  man  illustrating  the  work, 
and  both  seen  in  relation  to  society.  In  the  course  of 
this  inquiry  certain  features  of  Russian  imagination 
had  strongly  impressed  themselves  upon  him.  Mr. 
Maurice  Baring  has  recently  defined  for  us  the 
elements  of  the  realism  of  the  Russians,  "  their 
closeness  to  nature,  their  gift  of  seeing  things  as 
they  are,  and  of  expressing  those  things  in  terms 
of  the  utmost  simplicity."  He  proceeds  to  say 
that  this  is  "  the  natural  expression  of  the  Russian 
temperament  and  the  Russian  character."  This 
realism  Vogue  compared  with  the  formal  and 
mechanical  realism  of  the  French  Naturalists,  and 
it  opened  his  eyes  to  the  fallacies  of  the  latter.  He 
saw  that  the  aptitudes  of  Tolstoy  and  Dostoieffsky 
included  a  moral  inspiration  which  alone  could 
excuse  the  harshness  of  the  realistic  method. 

It  had  become  the  principle  of  literature  in  Paris 
about  1885  to  ignore  the  mystery  which  exists  about 
us,  to  repudiate  the  tiny  parcel  of  divinity  which 
every  human  being  contains.  Vogue's  answer  to 
Zola's  challenge  was  that  we  must,  indeed,  affirm 
nothing  dogmatically  with  regard  to  the  unknown 
world,  but  that  we  should  so  far  let  ourselves  go 
as  to  be  for  ever  trembling  on  the  brink  of  it. 
Realism,  he  pointed  out,  became  odious  at  the 
moment  when  the  development  of  its  dogma  in- 
sisted on  the  exclusion  from  its  work  of  the  element 
of  charity.  Literature,  instead  of  acting  as  a  stony- 


262  Portraits  and  Sketches 

hearted  contemplator  of  wretchedness,  should  make 
suffering  supportable  by  an  endless  flow  of  pity. 
Vogue  spoke  out,  loud  and  bold,  against  the  men 
of  letters  who  denied  that  literature  should,  in  any 
case,  have  a  moral  purpose,  and  who  covered  with 
scorn  the  novelist  that  endeavoured  to  console  and 
fortify  humanity.  Which  of  you,  he  said  in  effect, 
will  dare  to  contemn  Dostoieffsky,  under  whose 
gigantic  shadow  you  all  shrink  to  a  puny  stature  ? 
When  Edmond  de  Goncourt  talked  about  the  im- 
mutable laws  of  beauty  which  demanded  the 
experimental  treatment,  Vogii£  replied  that  the 
eminent  connoisseur  was  confusing  a  material 
thing,  the  technical  beauty  of  execution,  with  a 
divine  and  spiritual  grace.  The  great  word  came 
out  at  last,  and  the  critic  burned  his  ships — "the 
religious  sentiment  is,  after  all,  indispensable." 

When  this  had  been  said,  there  could  be  no 
length  of  daring  to  which  the  critic  would  not  be 
expected  to  attain.  He  ventured  to  speak  with 
severity  of  the  high  priest  of  Naturalism,  of  the 
mighty  Stendhal  himself.  He  did  not  scruple  to 
accuse  "  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme  "  of  abominable 
dryness,  nor  to  stigmatise  "  Rouge  et  Noir "  as 
disastrous  and  hateful.  What  he  disliked  in  these 
illustrious  romances,  and  in  the  less  weighty 
examples  of  their  posthumous  children,  was  the 
coldness  and  emptiness  of  their  attitude  to  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  some  English  novelists,  and 
in  particular  in  George  Eliot,  he  found  exactly  what 
he  wanted — realism,  but  realism  expanded  by 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue        263 

tenderness.  Vogue's  tribute  to  "  Adam  Bede "  is 
the  most  beautiful  which  George  Eliot  ever  re- 
ceived :  "  Une  larme  tombe  sur  le  livre  ;  pourquoi 
je  defie  le  plus  subtil  de  dire ;  c'est  que  c'est  beau 
comme  si  Dieu  parlait,  voila  tout." 

Such  is  the  temper  of  "  Le  Roman  Russe." 
Melchior  de  Vogue's  attitude  to  religion  in  this  mani- 
festo, and  throughout  the  remainder  of  his  works, 
was  somewhat  difficult  to  define,  since  he  never 
denned  it  himself.  He  said  that  life  only  begins 
where  we  cease  to  understand  it,  and  he  strongly 
reproved  the  positive  arrogance  which  denies  the 
existence  of  the  unseen  and  the  unconfirmed.  He 
was  stout  in  defence  of  the  essential  value  of  faith, 
and  he  objected  to  an  excessive  dependence  on 
what  is  concrete  and  logical.  Yet  he  never  pushed 
his  tenderness  of  soul  to  the  point  of  mysticism. 

The  manifesto  of  1886  had  a  remarkable  effect. 
From  all  sides  supporters  came  forward,  souls 
who  had  wandered  in  darkness  under  the  night  of 
Naturalism.  Vogue  found  himself  persecuted  by 
would-be  disciples,  worried  to  lead  down  into  the 
hurly-burly  a  self-styled  body  of  "  Neo-Christians." 
This  was  the  absurd  aspect  of  his  influence  ;  what 
alone  he  himself  valued  was  the  part  he  had  been 
enabled  to  take  in  the  revival  of  idealistic  literature 
in  France.  He  told  his  too  ardent  imitators,  when 
they  came  to  him  for  a  creed  :  "  You  must  choose 
your  own  mystery — the  great  thing  is  to  have  one." 
He  probably  hoped  to  see  a  definite  reaction  pre- 
sently set  in,  not  merely  in  literature,  but  in  politics 


264  Portraits  and  Sketches 

and  manners,  a  return  to  classicism  pure  and  simple, 
the  undiluted  ancien  regime;  but  the  democracy 
has  grown  too  multiform  and  comprehensive  for 
that. 

During  the  quarter  of  a  century  which  had  suc- 
ceeded his   famous  "  Avant-Propos "   the  Vicomte 
de   Vogue"   lived  a   strenuous  and   uneventful  life. 
In  1889  he  was  admitted  into  the  French  Academy  ; 
from  1893  to  1898  he  sat  in  the  Palais  Bourbon  as 
member  for  Annonay,  the  largest  town,  though  not 
the  capital,  of  his  own  department  of  the  Ardeche. 
He  travelled  much  ;   he  made  stately  appearances 
in  society ;    otherwise  his  whole  career  was  con- 
centrated in  literature.     He  was  a  poor  and  proud 
aristocrat   who   made   the   writing   of  articles    his 
profession.     None  of  his  books  repeated  the  sensa- 
tional success  of  "  Le  Roman  Russe,"  but  for  all  of 
them  there  was  a  loyal   and   respectful   audience. 
In   the   midst   of   the   frenzied  entente  of  1893  he 
published  "  Occurs  Russes,"  in  which  were  the  tales 
of  Uncle  Fedia,  the  colporteur,  who  gave  his  in- 
nocent life  to  save  Akoulina  ;  of  Vassili  Ivanovitch, 
the  tyrant  landlord  who  came  to  life  again  while 
the  serfs  were  dancing   round   his   death-bed ;    of 
Joseph  Ol£nine  and  his  magical  robe  of  fur.     He 
wrote  novels,  of  which  the  best  is  "  Jean  d'Agreve," 
which   has   had   passionate    admirers,   and    which 
describes  the  life  of  a  modern  Tristram  and  Iseult 
in     an     elysian    island     somewhere     off     Hyeres. 
This   is   marvellously    written,   but    too   lyrical   to 
be    quite  successful   as   a   novel ;    it   is   like   what 


Eugene  Melchior  de  Vogue        265 

"  Epipsychidion  "  might  have  been  if  Shelley  had 
written  it  in  prose.  One  is  surprised,  on  looking 
back,  to  see  how  many  volumes  the  punctual  and 
solid  articles  in  the  Revue  des  DcuxMondes  contrived 
to  fill  as  the  years  went  uniformly  by. 

The  Vicomte  Melchior  de  Vogue  was  a  very 
brilliant  writer,  but  he  was  even  more  remarkable 
as  a  man.  He  will  be  remembered  because,  when 
weariness  had  fallen  upon  the  world  of  letters,  he 
discovered  an  oasis  with  a  magical  fountain  in  it. 
He  tasted  very  sparingly  of  that  well  of  waters  him- 
self. He  was  austere,  superficially  dry,  painfully 
haunted  by  the  instability  of  things,  chilled  by  the 
precarious  and  fragile  tenor  of  all  earthly  hopes. 
But  he  was  an  idealist  of  the  purest  temper,  and 
his  loyalty,  clairvoyance,  and  a  certain  majesty  of 
mind  were  infinitely  precious  qualities  in  an  age 
so  chaotic  as  that  in  which  we  live. 

1910. 


ANDRE    GIDE 


ANDRE    GIDE 

INTERNATIONAL  taste  in  literary  matters  is  apt  to 
be  very  capricious.  France,  well  informed  about 
Stevenson  and  Mr.  Kipling,  full  of  curiosity  regard- 
ing Swinburne  and  Mr.  Hardy,  could  not,  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  focus  her  vision  upon  the  figure 
of  George  Meredith.  These  are  classic  names,  but, 
among  those  who  are  still  competitors  for  immor- 
tality, mere  accident  seems  to  rule  their  exotic 
reputation.  The  subject  of  the  following  reflections 
is  an  example  of  this  caprice.  He  was  born  forty 
years  ago  ;  his  life  has  been,  it  appears,  devoted  to 
the  art  of  writing,  of  which  he  has  come  to  be 
looked  upon  in  France  as  a  master.  In  Germany, 
in  Italy,  he  has  a  wide  vogue,  especially  in  the 
former.  By  a  confined,  but  influential,  circle  of 
readers  he  is  already  looked  upon  as  the  most 
interesting  man  of  letters  under  the  age  of  fifty. 
But,  so  far  as  I  have  noticed,  his  name  is  almost 
unknown  in  England.  This  is  the  more  extra- 
ordinary because,  as  I  hope  to  suggest,  his  mind 
is  more  closely  attuned  to  English  ideas,  or  what 
once  were  English  ideas,  than  that  of  any  other 
living  writer  of  France.  He  has  reproved  (in 
'.'  Lettres  a  Angele  "  and  elsewhere)  the  "detestable 


270  Portraits  and  Sketches 

infatuation  "  of  those  who  hold  that  nothing  speaks 
intelligibly  to  the  French  mind,  nor  can  truly  sound 
well  in  a  French  ear,  except  that  which  has  a  French 
origin.  M.  Gide  has  shown  himself  singularly 
attentive  to  those  melodies  of  the  spirit  which  have 
an  English  origin,  but  his  own  music  seems  as  yet 
to  have  found  no  echo  here. 

Of  the  career  of  M.  Gide  little  has  been  stated, 
since  he  is  not  one  of  those  who  talk  freely  about 
themselves  in  their  books.     But  I  take  him  to  be  a 
Southerner  by  extraction,  born,  or  at  least  bred,  in 
Normandy  ;  an  Albigense  transplanted,  with  all  his 
hereditary  Protestantism,  from  Languedoc  to  the 
shores  of  the  Channel.     He  says,  somewhere,  that 
the  Oc  and  Oil  are  equally  familiar  to  his  ear,  and 
that  he  is  not  more  devoted  to  the  blossom  of  the 
apple  than  to  that  of  the  pomegranate.     He  has 
been,  too,  it  is  evident,  a  great  wanderer  over  the  face 
of  Europe  and  Africa  ("  Amyntas  "),  and  he  affects, 
with  an  easy  grace,  some  of  the  airs  of  the  cosmo- 
politan.    But  in  his  heart  I  think  that  M.  Gide  is 
faithful  to  the  Norman  orchards.     He  is  a  product 
of  Calvinism,  and  the  extraordinary  interest  which 
the  movements  of  his  mind  present  is  due  to  the 
concinnity  they   reveal   in   his   moral   basis.      He 
offers  himself  to   us,  rather  shyly,  but  very  per- 
sistently, as  a  French  Protestant  who  has  grown  up 
and  out,  oh  !  so  far  and  so  pathetically  out,  of  the  firm 
low  root  based  upon  the  "  Institution  Chretienne." 
As  a  rule,  the  products  of  French  Protestantism 
have  not  much  general  value  for  an  English  reader. 


Andre   Gide  271 

Our  race  has  gone  so  much  further  in  that  direction, 
and  with  so  much  more  variety  !  The  sacrifice  of 
Calvinism  to  the  national  unity  of  the  French  has 
tended  to  dwarf  the  intellectual  manifestations  of 
the  sect.  But  in  the  writings  of  M.  Gide  it  is,  I 
think,  not  too  fantastic  to  discover  what  the  import- 
ance of  a  Huguenot  training  can  be  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  mind  which  has  wholly  delivered  itself 
from  the  Huguenot  bondage. 

The  progress  of  M.  Gide  has  been  slow.  He 
attempted  many  things  :  sentimental  autobiography, 
something  after  the  fashion  of  Mr.  A.  C.  Benson  ; 
poems  in  which  he  followed  Laforgue  and  floated 
on  the  stream  of  symbolism  ;  miscellaneous  and 
extravagant  tentatives,  which  were  half  prose,  half 
poetry.  Gradually  he  gained  confidence.  In  1899 
his  fantastic  dream  of  a  Prometheus  in  the  Paris  of 
our  day  was  scornfully  contested  by  the  critics  of 
the  moment.  In  his  curious  dramas,  "  Saul"  and 
"  Le  Roi  Candaule,"  he  felt  his  way  'towards  a 
more  and  more  personal  mode  of  expression.  He 
found  it  in  his  first  serious  novel,  "  L'Immoraliste," 
in  his  essays  ("  Feuilles  de  route,"  "  Pretextes  "),  in 
his  criticism.  He  has  become  what  an  early  admirer 
prophesied  that  he  would  become,  "a  luminous 
Levite,"  one  who  with  instant  daily  service  tends  the 
altar  of  intelligence  and  grace.  He  has  gradually 
detached  the  singular  originality  of  his  temper  from 
those  accidents  of  style  that  enwrap,  as  silk  enwraps 
a  chrysalis,  the  formal  parts  of  a  new  and  ardent 
writer. 


272  Portraits  and  Sketches 

Among  the  early  writings  of  M.  Andr£  Gide,  there 
is  one  which,  to  my  mind,  stands  out  prominent 
above  the  rest.  It  is  as  difficult  to  describe  the 
element  which  makes  "  Paludes  "  (1895)  one  °f  the 
most  exquisite  of  modern  books  as  it  would  be  to 
analyse  the  charm  of  "Tristram  Shandy."  People 
are  fond  of  repeating  that  the  French  have  no 
humour,  but  "Paludes"  is  humorous  from  end  to 
end.  It  is  not  exactly  a  novel ;  it  is  rather  a  satire 
on  the  excess  of  introspection  which  leads  clever 
young  men  to  write  novels  when  they  have  nothing 
of  the  least  moment  to  communicate.  It  is  the  story 
of  a  person  who  had  a  false  conception  of  life,  who 
raised  about  him  a  whirlwind  of  painful  agitation 
because  he  did  not  realise  that  but  one  thing  is 
needful.  The  unnamed  author  searches  for  a 
subject,  and  hits  heavily  upon  the  notion  of  a 
Virgilian  shepherd,  a  solitary  Tityrus,  who  shall 
inhabit  a  tower  in  the  midst  of  a  marsh,  a  palus, 
and  who  shall  cultivate  his  imagination  there  on 
the  absence  of  every  interest  and  object,  in  a  vain 
search  after  originality.  He  starts  upon  his  task, 
but  the  story — and  no  wonder — progresses  at  a 
snail's  pace,  interrupted  by  psychological  digres- 
sions, checked  by  the  depressing  criticism  of 
friends,  and  finally  losing  itself  in  a  general  vague- 
ness and  sterile  melancholy.  The  solemn  folly  of 
the  novelist  is  contrasted  with  the  bustle,  the  in- 
sufficiency, the  frivolity  of  the  chattering  com- 
panions who  surround  him,  and  there  is  not  less 
satire  of  middle-class  mental  emptiness  in  these 


Andre  Gide  273 

latter  than  of  the  pompous  excess  of  intellectual 
pretension  in  the  artist  himself,  tortured  by  his 
own  self-consciousness.  What  makes  "Paludes" 
extremely  amusing  to  the  consecutive  student  of 
M.  Gide's  work  is  that  it  marks  a  sort  of  crisis  of 
good  spirits,  in  which  the  youthful  author  turns 
suddenly  upon  himself  with  a  burst  of  elfin  laughter, 
and  sweeps  away  the  cobwebs  of  his  own  ingenuity. 
But  the  actual  tissue  of  the  book,  with  its  swift 
alternations  of  beauty  and  fun,  of  malice  and  au- 
dacity, cannot  be  unravelled  in  a  critical  survey. 
"  Paludes  "  lends  itself,  quite  simply,  to  the  pure 
enjoyment  of  the  reader. 

It  is,  however,  in  a  novel  of  sober  fullness  and 
distinguished  originality  that  M.  Gide  has  now 
definitely  risen  above  the  level  of  what  is  merely 
ingenious,  or  fantastic,  or  suggestive.  In  "La 
Porte  Etroite"  (1910)  he  has  written  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  books  which  have  been  printed  in 
Europe  for  a  long  time.  It  is,  therefore,  as  the 
author  of  that  noble  story  that  I  propose  to  dwell 
at  some  considerable  length. 

The  scene  of  "  La  Porte  Etroite  "  is  laid  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Havre,  where  there  exists,  and 
has  always  existed,  a  numerous  Huguenot  con- 
gregation. The  hero  of  the  story,  who  tells  the 
tale,  is  the  only  child  of  an  austere  and  melancholy, 
but  passive  widow  ;  she  and  he  share  the  company 
of  a  gentle  English  maiden  lady,  Miss  Flora  Ash- 
burton,  whose  sunken  fortunes  have  led  her  grate- 
fully to  accept  this  asylum.  Between  these  pious 

s 


274  Portraits  and  Sketches 

gentlewomen  JeYome  gradually  develops  from 
infancy  to  boyhood  in  a  sheltered  air.  His  only 
diversion  is  an  occasional  visit  to  his  cousins,  the 
Bucolins,  who  inhabit  a  large  house,  set  in  a  great 
tumultuous  garden,  close  by  at  Fougueusemare. 
The  Bucolins  are  Protestants  also,  and  worship  at 
the  Havre  "temple,"  but  their  religion  is  not  so 
sombre  as  that  of  Jerome's  household,  and  in  their 
life  there  are  exceptional  circumstances.  Uncle 
Bucolin  is  an  active  man,  engaged  in  business,  and 
Aunt  Bucolin  is  more  exceptional  still,  for  she  is  a 
Creole  from  Martinique,  and  she  lies  in  bed  half  the 
day,  and  in  a  hammock  the  other  half.  The  char- 
acter of  Aunt  Bucolin  has  always  been  felt  to  be 
hostile  to  the  heavenly  calling,  and  as  the  years  go 
by  she  becomes  more  reckless.  The  Bucolins  have 
three  children,  the  eldest  of  whom,  Alissa,  is  two  years 
older  than  Jerome  ;  Juliette  and  Robert  are  younger. 
Jerome  cannot  recollect  a  time  when  a  kind  of 
vague  and  seraphic  attraction  has  not  projected 
itself  on  his  juvenile  spirit  from  the  presence  and 
voice  of  his  cousin,  Alissa.  She  has  developed,  and 
is  still  developing,  a  delicate  virginal  beauty,  of  the 
Tuscan  order.  To  the  boy's  innocent  pedantry  her 
pale  oval  face,  and  eyebrows  tenderly  arched,  recall 
the  vision  of  Beatrice.  There  is,  however,  no 
realisation  of  the  nature  of  this  feeling  on  his  part 
until,  one  day,  a  singular  set  of  circumstances  com- 
bine to  give  it  voice.  In  the  unsuspecting  absences 
of  Uncle  Bucolin  on  business,  in  the  innocence  of 
her  two  younger  children,  the  Creole  aunt  finds  her 


Andre  Gide 


275 


opportunity  to  cultivate  objectionable  and  dangerous 
acquaintances,  and  Jerome  is  present  at  a  "scene" 
when  the  lady  from  Martinique  is  guilty  of  an  odious 
want  of  decorum.  He  flies  to  the  room  of  his 
cousin,  Alissa,  who  alone  is  conscious  of  the  horror 
which  surrounds  them  all,  and  who  greets  him, 
turning  as  she  kneels  in  supplication  at  her  toilet- 
table,  with  an  agonised  cry,  "  Oh,  Jerome,  pourquoi 
reviens-tu  ?  "  He  cannot  understand,  or  but  very 
vaguely  divines,  what  is  the  cause  of  Alissa's  beautiful 
anguish,  but  he  feels  the  celestial  purity  of  her 
sorrow ;  he  interprets  her  cry  as  including  him, 
adding  his  distress  to  the  sum  of  humiliations  ;  and 
this  is  the  turning-point  of  his  life.  For  the  future 
the  boy  will  exist  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  fill 
the  soul  of  Alissa  with  happiness  and  peace. 

The  terrible  Creole  woman  presently  cuts  the 
knot  herself  by  disappearing  with  one  of  her 
lovers,  and  the  Bucolin  family  never  hear  of  her  any 
more.  Gradually  they  settle  down  again  into  their 
customary  mode  of  life,  their  pious  attendance  on 
the  means  of  grace,  their  cheerful  relations  with 
others,  their  mutual  devotion.  The  sinful  branch 
has  been  cut  off;  it  has  severed  itself  in  a  storm 
and  been  carried  away  in  a  night  by  the  wind.  At 
the  chapel  the  incident  is  referred  to,  in  the  allusive 
manner  customary  among  the  devout,  in  the  course 
of  a  powerful  sermon  on  the  text  "  Efforcez-vous 
d'entrer  par  la  porte  etroite  ! "  The  wide  gate  which 
leadeth  to  destruction  is  picturesquely  described, 
and  Aunt  Bucolin,  without  actually  being  men- 


276  Portraits  and  Sketches 

tioned,  is  recalled  to  every  mind  as  one  of  the 
noisiest  of  that  over-dressed  and  loudly-laughing 
multitude  which  the  preacher  sees  gaily  descending 
to  hell  in  the  hideous  exaggeration  of  sin.  This 
remarkable  discourse  makes  a  profound  impression 
upon  Jerome.  He  imagines  himself,  against  his  will, 
elbowed  by  the  sin-stricken  crowd,  and  stunned  by 
the  noise  of  its  laughter.  Each  step  he  takes  divides 
him  further  and  further  from  the  melancholy  eyes  of 
Alissa.  Suddenly  the  preacher  makes  a  new  and  a 
direct  appeal  :  "  Strive  to  enter  in  at  the  strait 
gate  ! "  and  dilates  on  the  pure,  the  ineffable  joy 
which  streams  from  a  life  of  self-abnegation,  a  life 
all  devoted  to  sacrifice  and  holy  sorrow.  He  com- 
pares this  state  of  grace,  this  strenuous  "  walk  with 
God,"  with  an  air  played  in  a  lovely  garden  on  a 
violin,  an  ecstasy  at  once  strident  and  tender. 
"  Few  there  be,"  he  exclaims,  "  who  are  chosen  to 
pursue  this  life  of  sanctification."  "  I  will  be  one 
of  those  few  ! "  says  Jerome  to  himself.  Looking 
across  the  pews  of  the  chapel,  he  sees  the  pure 
countenance  of  Alissa  all  lighted  up  with  the  inward 
radiance,  and  he  consciously  unites,  for  the  first  time, 
the  idea  of  her  human  love  with  that  of  the  perfect 
love  of  Christ.  He  undergoes  a  double  conversion ; 
he  gives  his  soul  without  reserve  to  God  and  to  Alissa. 
This  conjunction  of  influences  acts  decisively  on 
a  spirit  already  prepared  for  it  by  the  exercises  of 
religion  and  by  the  puritan  discipline  of  family  life. 
As  M.  Gide  very  cleverly  makes  us  feel,  it  is  as 
natural  for  his  hero  to  submit  to  moral  restraints  as 


Andre  Gide 


277 


it  is  for  others  to  resist  them.  The  instinctive  habit 
of  the  circle  in  which  Jerome  had  been  brought  up 
was  to  seek  for  happiness  where  others  seek  for 
pleasure,  and  to  find  pleasure  only  in  the  Lord's 
service.  But  in  spite  of  this  condition  of  mind  and 
heart,  the  world,  with  all  its  many-coloured  show, 
is  rapidly  expanding  before  the  lad,  and  he  begins 
to  comprehend,  as  many  a  pious  youth  has  com- 
prehended, that  he  cannot  shelter  his  faith  for  ever 
behind  the  almost  monastic  hedges  of  private  habit. 
In  this  crisis  the  love  of  Alissa  seems  to  resemble 
the  pearl  of  great  price  of  which  the  Gospel  speaks  ; 
it  is  that  for  which  Jerome  will  cheerfully  and  even 
thankfully  sell  all  that  he  has.  It  is  with  a  hand  of 
extraordinary  firmness  and  delicacy  that  the  author 
has  drawn  the  years  of  adolescence,  in  which  the 
nature  of  Jerome  widens  and  strengthens,  without 
ever  failing  to  keep  the  figure  of  Alissa  before  him 
like  a  star  to  guide  him  : 

"  Travail,  efforts,  actions  pies,  mystiquement 
j'offrais  tout  a  Alissa,  inventant  un  raffinement  de 
vertu,  a  lui  laisser  souvent  ignorer  ce  que  je  n'avais 
fait  que  pour  elle.  Je  m'enivrais  ainsi  d'une  sorte 
de  modestie  capiteuse  et  m'habituais,  helas  !  con- 
sultant peu  ma  plaisance,  a  ne  me  satisfaire  a  rien 
qui  ne  m'eut  coute  quelque  effort." 

But  the  interest  of  the  story  now  centres  in  Alissa, 
of  whom  we  ask,  as  Jerome  asks,  what  will  be  the 
development  of  her  riper  and  perhaps  intenser 
nature.  Our  first  suspicion  of  a  tragic  destiny 
comes  over  us  in  the  course  of  a  scene,  very  lightly 


278  Portraits  and  Sketches 

and  even  laughingly  conducted,  where  Jerome 
involuntarily  overhears  a  conversation  in  the  garden 
between  his  cousin  and  her  father.  Jerome  himself 
is  the  subject  of  their  discussion,  and  his  tendency 
to  lean  on  the  spiritual  strength  of  others  is  anim- 
adverted upon.  This  leads  to  a  talk  between  the 
cousins  themselves,  in  which  Alissa  significantly 
asks  him,  "N'es-tu  pas  assez  fort  pour  marcher 
seul  ?  C'est  tout  seul  que  chacun  de  nous  doit 
gagner  Dieu."  She  gently  refuses  to  be  his  guide 
any  longer  :  the  soul  can  have  no  other  guide  but 
Christ.  She  winnows  the  vague  grain  of  Jerome's 
convictions,  and  his  pious  sentimentality  is  blown 
away  in  chaff  by  the  steady  breeze  of  Alissa's  clearer 
theology.  Still,  he  can  but  worship  God  in  and 
through  her.  That,  she  replies,  he  must  not  do,  for 
pure  worship  sees  nothing  between  the  worshipper 
and  God  Himself.  This  is  the  first  little  rift  within 
the  lute  of  their  perfect  unison  of  hearts,  and  it 
marks  the  difference  upon  which  their  happiness  is 
to  be  ultimately  shattered. 

It  would  be  to  give  a  very  false  idea  of  this  charm- 
ing book  to  dwell  to  excess  on  the  religious  problem 
which  it  raises.  The  story  is  one  of  domestic  pro- 
vincial life  in  the  north  of  France,  among  gentle 
and  cultivated  people,  which  is  full  of  amusing 
studies  of  character,  natural  and  entertaining  inci- 
dents, and  evidences  of  witty  observation  on  the 
part  of  the  author.  But  the  real  subject  of  the 
volume,  the  thread  which  runs  through  it  and  gives 
it  intellectual  adhesion,  after  all  is  precisely  a 


Andre  Gide 


279 


searching  analysis  of  the  incompleteness  and  narrow- 
ness of  the  moral  psychology  of  Protestantism.  The 
author  has  seen  how  cruelly  pietists  suffer  from 
excess  of  scruple,  how  disastrously  they  can  be 
overwhelmed  by  the  vain  sentiment  of  sinfulness. 
He  deals  with  a  state  of  soul  which  is  more  compre- 
hensible in  English  society  than  in  French,  and  which 
has,  perhaps,  found  no  exponent  before  in  the  litera- 
ture of  France  outside  the  ranks  of  those  who  have 
examined  the  results  of  a  Jansenist  training. 

The  family  councils,  while  admitting  that  the 
ultimate  marriage  of  Jerome  and  Alissa  is  a  matter  of 
course,  yet  decide  that  a  positive  betrothal  would  be 
injudicious  while  Jerome  is  so  young.  To  this  post- 
ponement the  wishes  of  Alissa  also  tend,  although 
the  only  scruple  which  she  yet  acknowledges  is  the 
result  of  her  slightly  greater  age,  and  the  tendency, 
which  he  continues  to  show,  to  lean  unduly  on  her 
judgment.  The  reader  is  made  to  perceive  that 
her  character  is  much  more  fully  developed,  and  set 
on  a  much  firmer  basis,  than  that  of  her  cousin. 
Jerome  meanwhile  proceeds  into  the  world ;  he 
studies  for  a  profession  in  Paris ;  he  goes  through 
his  term  of  military  service  at  Nancy  ;  he  engages 
in  a  long  journey  through  Italy.  All  these  events, 
by  a  natural  process  of  experience,  enlarge  his 
intelligence,  explain  to  him  the  meaning  of  life, 
modify  his  judgments  on  mankind.  His  pure  and 
devoted  passion  for  Alissa,  nevertheless,  is  subject 
to  no  real  diminution,  although  absence  and  physical 
change  obscure  and  sometimes  make  difficult  the 


280  Portraits  and  Sketches 

expression  of  it.    Moreover,  it  is  now  almost  entirely 
restricted  to  correspondence. 

While  Jerome  sees  the  world,  however,  in  all  its 
variegated  lights  and  colours,  Alissa  roams  in  the 
shadow  of  the  garden  at  Fougueusemare.  She  is 
wholly  occupied  in  being  a  mother  to  her  old  father 
and  to  his  family,  in  attending  to  her  charities,  and 
in  practising  her  religion.  She  grows  neither  sour 
nor  bitter,  but  she  becomes  interpenetrated  by  the 
pangs  of  many  exquisite  scruples.  The  mother  of 
Jerome  dies,  and  on  her  deathbed  desires  that  she 
may  see  the  hand  of  her  son  close  in  formal 
betrothal  on  the  pale  hand  of  Alissa ;  but  the  girl 
cannot  persuade  herself  that  she  ought  to  bind  her 
young  cousin  with  any  vow  ;  she  insists  that  they 
should  wait  until  Jerome  is  more  sure  of  his  own 
mind.  "  Comprends,"  she  adds,  "  que  je  ne  parle 
que  pour  toi-meme,  car  pour  moi  je  crois  bien  que 
je  ne  pourrai  jamais  cesser  de  t'aimer."  At  this 
moment,  infinitely  perplexing  for  the  young  lover, 
with  his  alternatives  of  docility  and  exasperation,  the 
mind  of  Alissa  is  slowly  proceeding  in  a  direction 
still  undetermined  to  her  own  consciousness. 

From  this  point  the  relation  between  the  lovers 
becomes  more  and  more  tragical.  Various  incidents, 
of  a  nature  to  enliven  very  agreeably  and  naturally 
the  pages  of  M.  Gide,  interpose  to  prolong  the 
inevitable  delay,  and  to  separate  Jerome  still  further 
from  Alissa.  These  obstacles,  however,  seem  to 
Jerome  to  be  exclusively  of  a  material  order  ;  his 
fidelity  to  his  purpose  is  unshaken,  and  he  never 


Andre  Gide  281 

ceases  to  regard  his  cousin  as  his  guiding-star. 
Unfortunately,  in  the  world  of  Paris  and  Italy,  in 
the  turmoil  of  literature  and  society,  he  finds  the 
instinctive  devoutness  of  his  carefully  guarded 
youth  break  down  in  an  indifference  which  he 
deplores  but  scarcely  tries  to  resist.  Somewhere 
Renan  makes  a  very  acute  remark  when  he  says,  in 
effect,  "  le  plus  grand  nombre  des  hommes  a  besoin 
d'un  culte  a  deux  degres."  Jerome,  in  the  advance- 
ment of  his  years,  rests  more  and  more  wholly 
upon  Alissa  for  his  religious  preservation. 

His  cousin  perceives  this,  and  she  retires  from 
him.  He  must  live  for  God  by  himself,  or  not  at 
all,  and  in  response  to  his  passionate  indignation, 
he  receives  a  definite  dismissal :  "  Adieu,  mon  ami. 
Hie  incipit  amor  Dei.  Ah  !  sauras-tu  jamais 
combien  je  t'aime  ?  Jusqu'a  la  fin  je  serai  ton  Alissa." 
The  young  lover,  more  ardent  than  ever,  cannot 
but  conceive  that  this  is  a  trap  laid  for  his  too  wary 
feet.  In  spite  of  prudence  and  duty,  he  will  fly  to 
protest  to  his  cousin  his  entire,  his  unalterable 
ardour,  and  he  will  put  an  end  to  a  false  position, 
which  scruples  have  made  ridiculous,  by  insisting, 
at  once,  on  a  full  and  open  ceremony  of  betrothal. 
He  arrives,  incontinently,  at  Fougueusemare,  where 
the  family  receive  him  with  enthusiasm,  but  only 
to  find  Alissa  singularly  changed.  She  avoids  all 
private  conversation  with  him,  exhibits  what  in 
any  one  else  would  seem  the  evidences  of  coldness 
or  disdain,  and  feigns — for  it  can  but  be  feigning — 
to  misunderstand  every  suggestion  and  every  protest 


282  Portraits  and  Sketches 

he  makes.  This  mysterious  situation  culminates  at 
length  in  another  scene,  at  a  subsequent  and  final 
visit  to  his  uncle's  house.  Alissa  now  no  longer 
shrinks  from  being  alone  with  her  cousin ;  she 
desires  him  to  see  her  as  she  is.  She  presents 
herself  to  him  very  dowdily  dressed,  without  any 
ornament ;  she1  takes  him  into  her  private  room, 
whence  all  her  pictures  and  her  books  have 
disappeared,  "remplaces  uniquement  par  d'insigni- 
fiants  petits  ouvrages  de  piete  vulgaire  pour  lesquels 
j'esp£rais  qu'elle  n'avait  que  du  mepris."  He  finds 
her  altered  in  mind,  in  taste,  in  appearance  ;  she 
has  become  wilfully  colourless  and  dull ;  she  has 
followed  the  cruel  counsel  of  the  theologian — 
abetissez-vous  !  and  to  the  protestations  of  Jerome's 
anger  and  despair  she  replies  with  a  gentle  in- 
difference. "  '  Laisse-moi  vite/  dit-elle — et  comme 
s'il  ne  s'6tait  agi  que  d'un  jeu  :  '  Nous  reprendrons 
cette  conversation  plus  tard.'  " 

The  conversation  is  not  resumed,  and  soon  after 
this  Alissa  fades  into  a  decline  and  dies.  Her 
journals  give  evidence  of  a  consuming  passion  for 
Jerome,  against  which  she  has  contended,  vainly 
stoical,  to  the  end.  I  do  not  know  where  to  find 
elsewhere  in  recent  fiction  so  pathetic  a  portrait  of 
a  saint  as  M.  Gide  gives  us  in  Alissa  Bucolin.  She 
is  like  one  of  the  religious  women  that  the  Sienese 
painters  of  the  fifteenth  century  loved  to  represent, 
shadowless  and  pale,  with  the  flame  of  sanctification 
already  quivering  on  their  foreheads  ;  or  like  Santa 
Fina,as  Ghirlandajo  conceived  her  at  San  Gimignano, 


Andre  Gide  283 

already  lost  to  earth,  "  un  fruit  de  souffrance " 
crushed  into  the  cup  of  God's  infinite  mercy.  But 
where  the  extreme  skill  of  the  author  of  "  La  Porte 
Etroite  "  is  displayed  is  in  the  fact  that  while  no 
element  of  Alissa's  progress  in  holiness  is  caricatured 
or  exaggerated,  while  every  symptom  of  it  is  recorded 
with  a  perfect  sympathy  for  herself  and  recognition 
of  her  aims,  it  is  not  with  approval  that  M.  Gide 
writes.  We  have  not  here  a  consecrated  Huysmans 
vapouring  about  the  ecstasies  of  St.  Lydvvine  of 
Schiedam,  but  a  man  of  modern  training,  clear-eyed 
and  cool,  who  entirely  appreciates  the  nature  of  the 
error  he  so  closely  describes,  and  regards  it  with 
deep  disapprobation.  The  sacrifice  which  Alissa 
makes  to  scruple  and  to  faith  is  a  vain  sacrifice, 
futile  and  wretched,  a  tribute  to  that  religion 
"  against  nature,  against  happiness,  against  common- 
sense,"  which  is  the  final  outcome  of  Puritanism. 
But  to  all  such  arguments  surely  there.is  no  better 
reply  than  the  old,  familiar  one  of  William  Johnson 
in  "  Mimnermus  in  Church"  : 

Forsooth  the  present  tee  must  give 
To  that  which  cannot  pass  away; 

All  beauteous  things  for  which  we  live 
By  laws  of  time  and  space  decay. 

But  oh,  the  very  reason  why 

I  clasp  them,  is  because  they  die  ! 

In  1911  M.  Andr<§  Gide  presented  to  his  readers 
a  novel,  "  Isabelle,"  which  is  wholly  unlike  any 
of  his  previous  books  in  character  and  form,  yet 


284  Portraits  and  Sketches 

which  could  only  have  been  written  by  himself. 
This  is  a  story  of  strange  adventures,  or  rather 
the  revelation  of  bygone  adventures,  in  a  decayed 
chateau  of  Normandy.  Gerard  Lacase,  the  sup- 
posed author  of  the  tale,  who  is  writing  for  his 
doctor's  degree  a  thesis  on  the  chronology  of 
Bossuet's  sermons,  is  informed  that  an  old  gentle- 
man, member  of  the  Academic  des  Inscriptions  et 
Belles-Lettres,  possesses — as  people  do  in  that 
wonderful  France — a  number  of  unpublished  docu- 
ments, and  in  particular  a  Bible  covered  with 
annotations  by  the  very  hand  of  Bossuet.  Lacase 
obtains  an  introduction  to  this  M.  Floche,  who  lives 
in  a  country-house  near  Pont-1'Eveque,  and  in  the 
middle  of  September  he  goes  down,  in  response  to 
an  amiable  invitation,  to  spend  a  few  days  at 
Quartfourche.  His  arrival  is  described  in  some  of 
the  most  admirable  pages  that  M.  Gide  has  signed. 
Nothing  happens  as  he  expected  that  it  would. 
The  route  is  winding,  interminable,  aimless  in  the 
vague  light  of  fading  afternoon.  The  park,  when 
the  broken-down  carriage,  which  has  been  sent  to 
conduct  the  guest  from  the  train,  reaches  it  at  last,  is 
sombre,  overgrown,  and  deserted.  As  Tennyson  says : 

He  comes,  scarce  knowing  what  he  seeks  : 
He  breaks  the  hedge :  he  enters  there  : 

TAe  colour  files  Into  his  cheeks  : 

He  trusts  to  light  on  something  fair. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  lights  on  poverty,  on  eccen- 
tricity, on  a   baffling  moral   horror,  the   exposure 


Andre  Gide  285 

of  which,  in  a  sense  absolutely  contrary  to  that 
which  his  young  enthusiasm  expected,  gives  the 
story  its  violent  finale,  its  curiously  disconcerting 
denouement. 

It  would  be  manifestly  unfair  for  me  to  spoil  the 
legitimate  surprise  of  the  reader,  which  is  led  up  to 
with  an  exquisite  art.  In  fact,  so  far  as  the  actual 
composition  of  "Isabelle"  is  considered,  M.  Gide 
has  written  nothing  more  instinct  with  his  peculiar 
magic.  Possibly,  however,  on  laying  it  down,  and 
on  freeing  himself  from  its  immediate  charm,  the 
reader  will  be  inclined  to  regard  this  novel  as  a  step  in 
the  direction  of  M.  Gide's  enfranchisement  from  con- 
vention rather  than  as  a  work  of  positive  perfection. 
It  is  an  experiment  in  a  mode  hitherto  unfamiliar  to 
him.  An  effect  more  purely  objective  than  had  been 
produced  in  his  earlier  stories  is  here  striven  after. 
The  subject  being,  as  we  say,  objective,  it  is  possibly 
a  mistake  to  have  told  the  narrative  in  the  first 
person,  since  it  involves  an  attitude  in  the  narrator 
which  is  often  not  a  little  unbecoming.  In  order  that 
the  mystery  should  be  unwoven,  it  is  found  needful 
that  the  young  student  of  Bossuet  should  engage  in 
a  series  of  investigations  which  that  meticulous  pre- 
late could  not  but  have  judged  exceedingly  indelicate. 
The  young  guest  listens  at  key-holes,  he  spies  out 
the  movements  of  his  hostesses,  he  opens  and  reads 
and  acts  upon  a  letter  intended  for  no  eyes  so  little 
as  for  his  own.  Probably,  when  M.  Gide  began 
his  tale,  he  did  not  anticipate  that  it  would  be 
necessary  to  represent  his  young  hero  in  the  act 


286  Portraits  and  Sketches 

of  so  many  outrages  upon  good  manners.  He  was 
intent  on  the  psychology  of  his  figures,  upon  the 
play  of  character  under  extravagantly  unusual 
conditions.  But  this  necessity,  which  involves  the 
reader  in  some  embarrassment,  could  have  been 
avoided  by  a  less  personal  method  of  delivery. 

The  cadences  of  M.  Gide's  prose  are  so  delicious 
that  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  quote  one 
more  brief  example  chosen  almost  at  random  from 
his  latest  romance  : 

"  Isabelle  !  .  .  .  et  ce  nom  qui  m'avait  deplu  tout 
d'abord,  se  revetait  a  present  pour  moi  d'elegance,  se 
p£n6trait  d'un  charme  clandestin  .  .  .  Isabelle  de 
Saint  Aur£ol !  Isabelle  !  J'imaginais  sa  robe  blanche 
fuir  au  detour  de  chaque  allee  ;  a  travers  1'incon- 
stant  feuillage,  chaque  rayon  rappelait  son  regard, 
son  sourire  m£lancolique,  et  comme  encore 
j'ignorais  1'amour,  je  me  figurais  que  j'aimais  et, 
tout  heureux  d'etre  amoureux,  m'ecoutais  avec 
complaisance.  Que  le  pare  etait  beau !  et  qu'il 
s'appretait  noblement  a  la  melancolie  de  cette 
saison  d£clinante.  J'y  respirais  avec  enivrement 
1'odeur  des  mousses  et  des  feuilles  pourrissantes.  Les 
grands  marroniers  roux,  a  demi  depouill£s  deja, 
ployaient  leurs  branches  jusqu'a  terre ;  certains 
buissons  pourpr£s  rutilaient  a  travers  1'averse ; 
1'herbe,  aupres  d'eux,  prenait  une  verdeur  aigue ; 
il  y  avait  quelques  colchiques  dans  les  pelouses  du 
jardin  ;  un  peu  plus  bas,  dans  le  vallon,  une  prairie 
en  £tait  rose,  que  Ton  apercevait  de  la  carriere  ou, 
quand  la  pluie  cessait,  j'allais  m'asseoir  ;  ou,  reveuse, 


Andre  Gide  287 

Mademoiselle  de  Saint-Aureol  s'etait  assise  naguere, 
peut-etre." 

Among  recent  imaginative  writers  M.  Gide  is 
perhaps  the  most  obstinately  individualist.  No 
subject  interests  him  so  deeply  as  the  study  of 
conscience,  and  in  one  of  his  early  volumes  I  find 
this  charming  phrase,  petulantly  thrown  forth  to 
annoy  the  Philistines — "Chacun  est  plus  pr£cieux 
que  tous."  Nothing  vexes  M.  Gide  so  much  as  the 
illogical  limits  which  modern  discipline  lays  down 
for  the  compression  of  the  human  will.  He  has 
written  in  "  L'Immoraliste"  what  I  admit  is  an 
extremely  painful  study  of  the  irritation  and  misery 
caused  by  a  too  definite  divergence  from  the  com- 
fortable type.  He  is  impatient  of  the  worry  which 
is  brought  about  by  moral  and  religious  abstrac- 
tions, and  this  I  take  to  be  the  central  idea 
pervading  some  of  his  strictly  symbolical  work, 
such  as  the  strange  drama  of  "  Le  Roi  Candaule" 
and  the  stranger  extravaganza  of  "  Philoctete." 
These  are  books  which  will  never  be  popular,  which 
are  even  provoking  in  their  defiance  of  popularity, 
which,  moreover,  bear  the  stamp  of  the  petulance 
of  youth,  but  which  will  always  attract  the  few  by 
the  remoteness  of  their  vision  and  the  purity  of 
their  style. 

The  strength  of  M.  Gide's  genius  consists,  I 
believe,  in  the  delicate  firmness  of  his  touch  as  an 
analyst.  He  has  no  interest  in  groups  or  types  ; 
his  eye  is  fixed  on  the  elected  spirit,  on  the  ethical 
exception.  One  of  his  characters  in  "  Le  Pro- 


288  Portraits  and  Sketches 

methee  Mal-Enchaine "  exclaims,  "  Les  person- 
nalites,  il  n'y  a  que  cela  d'interessant ;  et  puis  les 
relations  entre  personnalites !  "  We  have  here  the 
strait  gate  through  which  the  author  takes  all  his 
imaginary  figures,  and  if  their  conventionality  has  so 
flattened  them  out  that  they  cannot  pass  the  test,  he 
flings  them  from  him.  It  is  a  most  encouraging 
matter  to  the  admirers  of  M.  Gide  that  his  progress 
as  an  artist  has  been  definite  and  steady.  He  has 
grown  from  year  to  year  in  his  sense  of  harmony, 
in  his  sympathy  with  human  existence.  In  his 
early  books  he  gave  a  certain  impression  of 
hostility  to  ordinary  life  ;  his  personal  attitude  was 
a  little  arrogant,  tending  a  little  to  lawless  eccentri- 
city. The  beautiful  human  pages  of  "  La  Porte 
Etroite"  show  how  completely  he  has  outgrown 
this  wilful  oddity  of  aim. 

There  is  no  other  writer  in  Europe,  at  the  present 
moment,  whose  development  is  watched  with  so 
eager  an  interest,  by  the  most  sensitive  and  intelli- 
gent judges,  as  is  that  of  M.  Gide.  What  will  he  do 
next ;  what  will  he  grow  into  ?  Those  are  ques- 
tions which  every  student  of  living  literature  must 
ask  himself  as  he  contemplates  the  author  of 
"Pretextes"  and  of  "  Nouvelles  Pretextes."  He 
aims,  we  perceive,  at  giving  a  new  direction  to  the 
art  of  the  novelist,  but  who  can  feel  sure  that 
he  has  yet  discovered  the  exact  way  in  which  this  is 
to  be  done  ?  Thus  he  is  for  ever  experimenting ; 
he  is  never  satisfied,  never  content  to  be  a  cliche  of 
himself.  He  seems  to  stand  alone  in  the  France  of 


Andre  Gide  289 

to-day,  midway  between  the  schools,  now  leaning  a 
little  to  the  revolutionary,  now  to  the  retrograde 
party.  He  is  the  opponent,  I  take  it,  of  that  rash 
and  undisciplined  improvisation  which  so  danger- 
ously fascinates  so  many  young  writers  nowadays. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  is  not  delivered  up,  bound 
hand  and  pen,  to  the  old  logical  lucidity  of  classic 
France.  There  is  something  northern  about  his 
genius,  which  loves  to  cultivate  tremulous  caprices 
and  the  twilight  hours,  and  dreads  the  excess  of 
light  that  glares  through  the  system  of  French 
intellectual  discipline. 

I  have  said  that  M.  Andr£  Gide  is  more  closely 
attuned  in  many  respects  to  the  English  than  to  the 
French  spirit.  This  is  true,  if  we  regard  his 
attitude  as  a  little  belated.  Since  1900  our  native 
authors  have  adopted  a  vociferous  tone,  which  is 
certainly  not  that  of  "  La  Porte  Etroite."  English 
literature  has,  in  this  twentieth  century,  set  up  a 
megaphone  in  the  market-place,  and  the  prize  is  for 
him  (or  her)  who  shouts  the  loudest.  But  when  we 
say  that  M.  Gide  is  in  sympathy  with  English  ideas, 
it  is  of  a  slightly  earlier  period  that  we  are  thinking. 
He  is  allied  with  such  tender  individualists  of  the 
close  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  Shorthouse  and 
Pater.  Those  who  delight  in  the  contrast  between 
types  of  character,  exhibited  with  great  dexterity  by 
a  most  accomplished  hand,  will  follow  the  literary 
career  of  M.  Andre"  Gide  with  curiosity. 

1909-12. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ACTON,  Lord,  159 

"  Age,  The,"  Bailey's,  88 

"  Age  of  Elizabeth,"  Creigh- 
ton's,  177 

"  Angel  World,"  Bailey's, 
85 

Arnold,  Matthew,  155,  202, 
203 

Ashburnham,  Lady  Jane 
Henriette,  45 

"  Atalantain  Calydon,"  Swin- 
burne's, 5-6 

BAILEY,  Philip  James,  61- 
93.  Parentage,  69;  first 
edition  of  "  Festus,"  71 ; 
the  "Festus"  of  1901,  72; 
the  lyrical  element  in 
"  Festus,"  73  ;  the  keynote 
of  "Festus,"  76;  the  nar- 
rative, 78 ;  reviewers,  82  ; 
first  admirers  and  advo- 
cates of  "  Festus,"  84  ; 
"  The  Angel  World,"  85  ; 
"The  Mystic,"  87;  "The 
Age,"  88;  style  and  in- 
fluence, 85-93 

"  Balder,"  DobelPs,  91 

Balestier,  Wolcott,  215-225. 
Parentage,  216  ;  early 
career,  216 ;  life  in  London, 
217-220;  characteristics, 
220-223 

Baudelaire,  Swinburne's  re- 
view of,  5 


"Bay  of  Seven  Islands," 
Whittier's,  144 

Bellmann,  C.  M.,  229 

"  Benefits  Forgot,"  Balestier's, 
217,  224 

Bigg,  John  Stanyan,  91 

Benson,  Mr.  A.  C.,  217 

"Blake,  William,"  Swin- 
burne's, 52 

"Borough,  The,"  Crabbe:s, 
146 

"  Bothwell,"  Swinburne's,  52 

Brandes,  Georg,  235 

British  Museum,  n,  130,  131 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett, 
8,42,  84,  112,  115 

Browning,  Robert,  54-55,  70, 
130 

Burton,  Sir  Richard,  32 

"CARDINAL  WOLSEY,"  Creigh- 

ton's,  186 

Carlisle,  George,  8th  Earl  of,  6 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  65 
Catullus,  37 
Chambers,  Robert,  89 
"  Chastelard,"  Swinburne's,  6 
"  Christian  Year,"  Keble's,  156 
Churchill,    Randolph,    Lord, 

169,  170 

Cladel,  Leon,  56 
"  Coeurs  Russes,"  Vogue's,  264 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  200 
Columbus,  Samuel,  229 
Concord  Riots,  141 


294 


Index 


"  Cosmo  de  Medici,"  Home's, 
103 

"  Course  of  Time,"  Pollok's, 
68 

Crabbe,  George,  145,  146 

Creighton,  Mandell,  parent- 
age, 166;  at  Oxford,  167, 
177;  characteristics,  167- 
169 ;  at  Embleton,  177, 
182;  at  Cambridge,  183; 
in  Peterborough,  186;  in 
London,  189;  at  Moscow, 
195 ;  as  a  preacher,  194 ; 
person,  195 ;  character  and 
temperament,  191 

Creighton,  Mrs.,  172 

"  Culture  and  Anarchy," 
Arnold's,  202 

"  DEAD  LOVE,"  Swinburne's, 

5 

de  Vere,  Aubrey,  61-63. 
Parentage,  119-210;  char- 
acteristics, 121 

de  Vogue,  Eugene  Melchior, 
243-265.  Person, 2 44-246  ; 
parentage,  246;  early  life, 
247 ;  travels,  248  -  250 ; 
talent,  251;  Russian  in- 
fluence, 252-254 ;  diplo- 
matic career,  249-254; 
Taine,  255;  in  Paris,  256; 
studies  of  Russian  novelists, 
258-263  ;  latest  works,  264  ; 
"  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes," 
254-265 

Dickens,  Charles,  47,  108-100 

Dobson,  Mr.  Austin,  232 

Dostoieffsky,  56 

Dryden,  229 

Dunton,  Mr. Theodore  Watts-, 
53 

"EARTHLY  PARADISE," 
Morris's,  203 


Eleonora,  Ulrika,  Queen,  229 
Eliot,  George,  16, 263 
Emerson,  R.W.,  140-141,  210 
"  English  Historical  Review," 

185,  189 
"  Erechtheus,"    Swinburne's, 

42 
"  Essays  in  Little,"   Lang's, 

210 

"FAIR   DEVICE,  A.,"   Bales- 
tier's,  223 

"  Fairy  Tale,  A,"  Bailey's,  88 
"  Faust,"  Goethe's,  72-74,  76 
"  Festus,"  Bailey's,  69-73 
"  Fifine  at  the  Fair,"  Brown- 
ing's, 54 
"Flashes      and       Patches," 

Snoilsky's,  238 
Franzen,  F.  M.,  230 
Freeman,  Edward,  177 
"  Friendship's    Garland," 

Arnold's,  202 
Froding,  Gustaf,  238 

GAINSBOROUGH,  152 
Gardiner,  S.  R.,  183 
Gaskell,  Mrs.,  40 
Gautier,  Th^ophile,  35,  206 
Geijer,  E.  G.,  230 
Gide,  Andr£,  269-289 
Gifford,  William,  145 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  157,  159 
Goethe,  influence  on  Bailey, 

74 

Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  28 
Gray,  Thomas,  140 
Green,  John  Richard,  177 
Grey,  George,  Sir,  176 
'  Guitar    and    Harmonica," 

Snoilsky's,  238 

HALLSTROM,  Per,  240 
Hardy,  Mr.  Thomas,  218,  223, 
269 


Index 


295 


Heidenstam,  Verner  af,  238 
"  Helen  of  Troy,'  Lang's,  zo\ 
Hewlett,  Mr.  Maurice,  153 
"History    of    the    Papacy," 
Creighton's,    174,  176,  186, 
188,  189 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  140,  141 
Holy    Grail,"    Tennyson's, 
130 

Home  "  Orion,"  character- 
istics, 98-100;  early  ad- 
ventures, 101 ;  marriage, 
108  ;  in  Australia,  109 ;  his 
correspondence  with  Mrs. 
E.  B.  Browning,  100-115 
Hugo,  Victor,  31,  34,  40,  41, 
203 

IBSEN, 56 

"  Idylls  of  the  King,"  Tenny- 
son's, 129 

"  Immoraliste,  1',"  Gide's,  285 

"  In  Memoriam," Tennyson's, 
129 

"  Isabelle,"  Gide's,  282 

JAMES,  Mr.  Henry,  215 
"Jean  d'  Agreve,"  de  Vogue's, 

264 

"John      Inglesant,"     Short- 
house's,  154-162 
Jones,  Sir  Edward  Burne-,  49 
"Joseph   and  his  Brethren,'1 

Wells's,  52 
Jowett  and  Mazzini,  6 

KEATS,  John,  63,  101, 123,  231 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  221,  269 

"  LACON,"  Colton's,  64 
Lagerlof,  Selma,  240 
Lamb,  Charles,  53 
Landor,  W.  S.,  40,  44,  52,  53 
Lang,  Andrew,  199-211.  Ver- 
satility, 200 ;  individuality 


202 ;  eclecticism,  204  ;  per- 
son, 206 ;  wit,  209 ;  tempera- 
ment, 210 

Leighton,  F.,  33 

"  Letters  and  Literary  Re- 
mains," Shorthouse's,  151- 
152 

"  Letters  to  Dead  Authors," 
Lang's,  210 

"  Lettres  i  Angele,'1  Gide's, 
269 

Levertin,  Oscar,  238 

"  Life  Drama,  A.,"  Smith 
(Alex.),  91 

"  Little  Schoolmaster  Mark," 
Shorthouse's,  155 

"  Lucretius,"  Tennyson's,  129 

Lytton,  Sir  E.  Bulwer,  84 

MACAULAY,  Lord,  68 

Malherbe,  229 

"  Manfred,"  Byron's,  72 

Marston,  P.  B.,  49 

"  Maud,"  Tennyson's,  129 

Maupassant  and  Swinburne, 

20-21,  27-31 
Mazzini,  18 
Meredith,  George,  218 
Milton,  John,  209 
Minto,  William,  53 
"  Mis4rables,  les,"  Hugo's,  40 
Montgomery,  James,  71 
Morris,  William,  42,  130, 155 
Miiller,  Max,  172 
"  Mystic,"  Bailey's,  87 

"  NATURAL     THEOLOGY," 

Lang's,  205 

Newman,  J.  H.,  122, 124-125 
'«  New  Poems,"  Snoilsky's,236 
"  Night  and  the  Soul,"  Bigg's, 

91 
"Night  Thoughts,"  Young's, 

81 
North,  Christopher,  124 


296 


Index 


"  OLD  FRIENDS,"  Lang's,  210 
"  Orchids,"  Snoilsky's,  233 
"  Orion,"  Home's,  103-107 
Oscar  II.,  237 
O'Shaughnessy,  Arthur,  49 
Ossian,  63 

"PAPACY,History  of,"  Creigh- 
ton's,  174,  177,  186,  188, 
189 

"  Paracelsus,"  Browning's,  69 

Pascal,  205 

"  Patent  Philtre,"  Balestier's, 
223 

Pater,  Walter,  172,  288 

"  Philip  van  Artevelde," 
Taylor's,  66-69,  71 

"  Philoctete,"  Gide's,  286 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  29 

"  Poems  and  Ballads,"  Swin- 
burne's, 5-6,  36 

Pope,  Alexander,  229 

Pope,  John  XXII.,  178 

"  Porte  Entroite,"  Gide's, 
271-282 

"  Promethee  Mal-Enchaine," 
Gide's,  286 

"  Prometheus,"  Home's,  no 

Purnell,  Thomas,  53 

"  QUEEN  -  MOTHER,"  Swin- 
burne's, 5 

RALSTON,  W.  R.  S.,  131,  133 

Redesdale,  Lord,  13 

"  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes," 

254,  258,  265 
"  Ring      and      the      Book," 

Browning's,  54 
"  Roi     Candaule,"      Gide's, 

271 
"Roman     Russe,     le,"      de 

Vogue's,  863,  264 
Romney,  152 
Ronsard,  203-204 


Rossetti,  D.  G.,  39,  130,  155, 

203 
Ruskin,  John,  153,  200 

"  SALATHIEL,"  Croly's,  68 

Sartoris,  Mrs.,  33 

Saturday  Review,  177 

"  Saiil,"  Gide's,  271 

Seeley,  Sir  J.  R.,  183 

Shakespeare,  41,  42 

Shakespere  Society,  New,  54 

Shelley,  P.  B.,  24,  67,  82-83 

Shorthouse,  J.  H.,  151-162, 
219,  288 

"  Short  Poems,"  Snoilsky's, 
232 

"  Simon  de  Montfort,  Life 
of,"  Creighton's,  177 

Smith,  Henry,  172,  174 

Snoilsky,  Carl,  229-240. 
Parentage,  231;  contem- 
poraries, 232;  early  life, 
232 ;  in  Italy,  233 ;  in  Swe- 
den, 234;  literary  work, 
236-239 

"Songs  Before  Sunrise," 
Swinburne's,  6 

"  Songs  in  Time  of  Change," 
Swinburne's,  52 

"Sonnets,"  Sir  Aubrey  de 
Vere's,  120 

Southey,  Robert,  65-67 

Spasmodists,  The,  91 

Spectator,  5 

Spedding,  James,  132 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  56,  207-208, 
269 

Stjernhjelm,  229 

Swinburne,  Adam  de,  Sir,  4 5 

Swinburne,  Admiral,  46-48 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles, 
impression  produced  upon 
early  admirers,  3;  earliest 
works,  5-6;  second  period 
of  public  fame,  6;  "The 


Index 


297 


Atalanta,"  "  Chastelard." 
"Poems  and  Ballads," 
"Songs  Before  Sunrise," 
6 ;  physical  conditions 
affecting  genius,  8-15; 
unique  appearance,  10 ; 
agility  and  brightness,  1 1 ; 
love  of  swimming,  12-13; 
characteristics,  14-15 ;  Maz- 
zini,  17-18;  at  Etretat,  19- 
28;  with  Maupassant,  20-32 ; 
at  Vichy,  33  ;  Victor  Hugo, 
34,  40-41 ;  conversational 
powers,  36-39;  study  of 
Shakespeare,  41 ;  the  Athe- 
nceum  and  Erechtheus,  42 ; 
sentiment  about  literature, 
43 ;  intellectual  tempera- 
ment, 45;  ancestry,  45  ;  resi- 
dence in  London,  47 ;  coun- 
try home,  48  ;  prodigious 
worker,  51 ;  Browning,  54- 

55  ;   Stevenson,  56;    Ibsen 
and  Dostoieffsky,  56 ;  Zola, 

56  ;     Cladel,     56  ;    revolt 
against   the  mid- Victorian 
Era,  57 ;  praise  of  the  sea, 
175 ;  Tennyson,  130 

Swinburne,  Miss  Isabel,  14 

TAYLOR,  Sir  Henry,  66 
Tegn6r,  Esias,  230 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  84, 129-134 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  84 


Theocritus,  210 
Thompson,  George,  142 
Thornycroft,  Mr.  Hamo,  132 

182 

Tolstoy,  261 

"Tom  Jones,"  Fielding's,  154 
Tourgeniev,  258 
"  Tracts  for  the  Times,"  65 
Trost,  Sven,  232 

VALLIN,  Theodule,  Capt,  23 

Victorian  Mid-Era,  Swin- 
burne's revolt  against,  57 

"Victorious  Defeat,"  Bales- 
tier's,  223 

Virgil,  119 

"Voyages  au  Paysdu  passe"," 
de  Vogue* 's,  249 

WARD,  Humphry,  Mrs.,  187, 

215 

Warburg,  Karl,  232 
Whistler,  J.  A.  McNeill,  155 
Whittier,  J.  G.,  137-147.  Per- 
son,   139;    characteristics, 
143 ;  place  as  poet,  146 
William  IV.,  64,  65 
Winther,  Christian,  233 
Wise,  Mr.  Thomas  J.,  5 
Wordsworth,  W.,  51,  65,  121- 

124,  157 

"Wrong  Paradise,  In  the," 
Lang's,  210 


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